THE CASE FOR STILTS

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Cambridge is indeed indebted to Uncle Dudley of the Globe for his witty, if uninformative editorial of January 23 concerning the proposal for an office building over the Harvard Square subway ramp.

Please permit me as the architect for the project, a resident of Cambridge, and a Harvard alumnus not disinterested in Harvard's welfare, to point out some of the facts involved.

The proposed site is not the keystone of the Cambridge park system, it is not physically a part of the aesthetically and historically invaluable common, and it is not at the exact center of the Harvard Square traffic complex.

The building would not at all be incompatible in design with a great many of Harvard Square's most important and recent additions.

It will provide its own off street parking and in addition will house on the ground level an off street loading area for MTA buses, connected underground with the rapid transit line, thus eliminating two major sources of congestion from the streets, namely the buses themselves and pedestrians transferring from one line to another.

This would not be the first building on stilts in Harvard Square. The first is the Treadway Motor House at the opposite end of the square, which is now adding another story after only ten months of operation. Its success is no doubt due to the occupants' peace of mind at being protected from the snakes which infest the area.

This is a bold, imaginative proposal, which, if properly planned, promises great relief to the core of Harvard Square and to MTA service, at very little cost to either. It deserves careful study and evaluation, not thoughtless jibes and dismissal. Paul G. Feloney '48