The Gray Blockhouse

In harmony with its uneventful life, Grays Hall slipped quietly into Harvard Yard in 1863. Concerned only with the Civil War, the College did not even bless the house with a ground-breaking ceremony. Its drab appearance well fitting the role, Grays dragged through its colorless career until 1950 when a decrepit fourth floor room gave up the struggle and collapsed.

Grays was built on the site of Harvard's first dormitory, the "Old College." In 1642, the teachers of the College decided to establish a "more Collegiate way of living" for their pupils and, drawing one thousand pounds from John Harvard's legacy, they built the "Old College." Modeled for beauty instead of endurance, the building began to totter twenty-five years later and was abandoned. The super-functional design of Grays, lacking the Victorian flourish of its period, indicates that its creators sacrificed beauty to avoid the fate of the "Old College."

Acceptance of the blockhouse's plans came quickly, but it took a year of haggling before the administration decided where to build Grays. The floorplan was shuttled around a huge map of the Yard, each site meeting with some objection. When the prints sat east of Holworthy, residents claimed this would block their view of Appleton Chapel. If placed behind what is now Weld Hall, argued others, it would choke the growth of the College library which might "expand to 750,000 or a million volumes some day." One position evoked few complaints and was virtually settled on until someone measured and found that the house would run through the side of Holworthy. Fears of cutting down space for dancing on the grass, a form of amusement prevalent at the time, ruled out several other plots, but finally, amid protests about "the noise from Harvard Square," the cite of the "Old College" was accepted.

Grays slumbered through the nineteenth century and remained undisturbed by modern innovations until 1921. But amid unheated rooms and gas lights, there were some compensations. Grays proved the ideal spot for dropping water bombs on passing Yard cops, and its decadent fixtures inspired residents to make their own electrical gadgets. This temporary surge of spirit caused the only recorded use of fire ropes in University history; a proctor locked himself in his room and after hours of fruitless effort, he turned from the door and slid down from his window.

Perhaps the most famous of Grays' boarders, Thomas William Lamont '92 left one professorship and one library to bear his name. Almost as well known is the name William Henry Schofield, the originator of comparative literature at Harvard. He spent eight years in Grays 38 and liked the room so much that he left a fund preserving it as a home for visiting professors. Since then, Grays 38 has acquired many antique fixtures. Now equipped with an oriental rug, a Victorian bureau and a Colonial bed, it is a strange contrast to its otherwise ordinary setting. JOHN S. WELTNER