Pagoda on the Charles

For over seventy years, since the days when it ranged from a mudflat to tidal torrent twice daily, the Charles has been the playground of youthful Harvard galley slaves. Before the turn of the century, boat clubs made rowing attractive; over five hundred undergraduates used to pull oars, and many more thronged to the crew races.

One Saturday afternoon the spectators watching a race from the balcony of the Boat House suddenly crashed through the termite-eaten floors. At the University's suggestion, New York alumni donated $25,000 to construct Newell Boat House. For some reason the donors specified a Japanese-type building, with ornate decorations to "harmonize with Soldiers Field." When the last spires were being attached, a workman, following the precedent of Mrs. O'Leary's cow, kicked over a can of hot creosote. The structure was burnt to the ground, and the alumni were singed too--for the $15,000 necessary to rebuild the house.

Since its completion in 1901, the boat house has suffered from fires nearly every year. In 1925 a mysterious fire started in the lounge upstairs open only to varsity crew members. Firemen claimed that the blaze was started by a cigarette, but the coaches naturally refused to believe that any crew member would smoke, especially in sacred territory. They maintained that a nest-building bird flew in with the lighted Lucky.

Dilapidated and wobbly as it is, the grotesque Japanese pagoda is the year-round headquarters for the $85,000-a-year rowing industry. When the crew returns from lumber mills and yacht clubs in September, it removes the 18 long, slim shells from the racks and rows every day until ice forms on the river. Then the Oriental barn becomes home for both boats and crew, like a nineteenth century factory--producing "oarsmen." Machines upstairs fashion rowing muscles as the crew-men pull on bars which resist their efforts like water opposing the motion of an oar. The crew is polished down-stairs in the "tank," a ramp outfitted with regulation oars and seats, surrounded by water. Each rower pulls an oar through the moving water, as the coaches correct flaws in technique.

After the long winter, successful crews add trophies to the collection accrued in the varsity lounge, where the awards won at Henley, England and Red Top at Yale are carefully preserved. Banners and cups adorn the room, and old crew members returning to the lounge may look through scrap books for stories of their younger, more heroic days. Each spring, visiting crews also redecorate the boat house; some of them specialize in painting a huge "Y" on the front piazza, others prefer "M.I.T." or "D."

But the rickety house seems doomed to a premature end. Even though the termites will spare the building for another decade, it may fall victim to highway progress. Massachusetts plans another link in its great highway chain--a cloverleaf--right on the site of the Newell Boat House.