'Cliffe Buys Apartment House for Dorm

Radcliffe College yesterday purchased the apartment building at 124 Walker St., between Cabot and Comstock Halls, for use as an undergraduate dormitory until the fourth House Center is built.

The transaction ended Radcliffe's 25-year effort to buy the property, and gives the College ownership of all the land and buildings in the residential quadrangle located between Walker, Shepard, Garden, and Linnaean Sts.

Eighty-seven students will move into the building next September. They will live in 29 suites, each containing a bedroom for three people, a living room, kitchenette, and dining area. The other three apartments will house a head resident and members of the College staff.

Radcliffe will run the building as an off-campus house and charge the standard off-campus fee, currently set at $695 a year, for room and board. Each resident will be assigned to eat dinner in one of the nine brick dormitories and will be affiliated with the House Center to which the hall belongs.

Three Houses to Be Dropped

Because of the extra room space provided by the apartment house, Radcliffe will drop its lease on three off-campus houses (Greycroft, Greycroft Annex, and MacIntire), Joan C. King, assistant dean of Residence and Student Affairs, announced yesterday.

The girls now living in these three dorms will have first choice among the apartments, she said. Juniors and seniors with financial need, particularly those on the waiting list for the co-operative houses, will be second in line for the rooms.

Applications, now available in the Office of the Dean of Residence and Student Affairs, are due Wednesday, April 18. The names of students assigned to the apartments will be announced Friday, April 20.

Deadline Suspended

Miss King has suspended until that time the room assignment procedures originally set for this week. After the apartment building is filled, she will allow the rest of the dorms to make their room arrangements.

The new housing will enable the College to deconvert rooms in Whitman and Barnard Halls, Miss King said. "No one will be permitted to select rooms on the first floors of these two dormitories," she noted. "We may use the space for other purposes."

When the fourth House Center opens, probably in September, 1964, the apartment building will be used for Faculty members and graduate students participating in House activities.

Formerly owned by the 124 Walker Street Trust, the apartment building was erected in 1938 after Radcliffe decided it could not afford to buy the land. Ada Comstock Notestein, then President of the College, told the CRIMSON yesterday, "I'm delighted to hear of the removal of the most obvious blot on my administration."

Since 1938, the College has made repeated efforts to buy the building. Arthur D. Trottenberg '48, administrative vice-President, reported that he has been negotiating for the purchase for the last five or six months.