University, JFK Library Officials Start Important Negotiations on Site Use

The University and officials of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library have begun informal, but crucial, talks about the nature of the Library site.

M. Pei, the Library's architect, met for several hours recently with President Pusey. It was the first long meeting between the two men. Richard E. Neustadt, head of the Kennedy Institute on Politics, and Don K. Price, Dean of the Graduate School of Public Administration, also attended.

The four men reportedly discussed the relation of the Kennedy Institute to other parts of the University. The Institute, one of the three major buildings comprising the Memorial, will be turned over to Harvard once it is completed.

Their talk, however, is believed to have extended to a wider range of topics, including many of the unresolved issues about what to do with the area around the three major buildings--the Library, the Archieves, and the Institute.

These buildings will probably occupy only six to eight acres of the 12-acre site, the MBTA yards. For the remaining land, architect Pei is considering a "mixed-use" plan of parking facilities, restaurants, small shops, and offices for undergraduate organizations.

But the final use of this land has not been decided, and, as a result, the completion of Pei's masterplan has been delayed. The masterplan, showing exactly what buildings would go on the MBTA yards as well as proposed parking and traffic changes, had originally been expected in the spring. It will now be at least early summer before the plan is ready.

Discussions about the Library site are described as "touchy," and some major questions still remain unresolved, according to informed sources. "I've decided that no one meeting is the end of anything," one man close to the Library said yesterday.

One problem, it is believed, is the place for large office buildings or residences on the site. The University has, in the past, favored such buildings because of the large tax returns they would provide Cambridge.

Some definite landuse decisions may be forthcoming in May when the Board of Directors of the Library Corporation meets. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy '43 (D.N.Y.), president of the Corporation, may well have the final word on most important matters, observers believe.