Harvard Offers City $150,000 To Close Road

The University plans to give $150,000 to Cambridge if the City Council agrees to close McCarthy Road. The Council meets Monday to consider the action, requested by Harvard to form a link between Dunster House and the new 10th Undergraduate House.

The payment would, in essence, be the cost of buying the road at a price between $10 and $11 per square foot. But because of legal technicalities, University officials are calling the transfer a "contribution" to the City.

Monday's public hearing will mark the third time in the last six years that Harvard has asked the Council to close a road to accommodate University building plans.

In both cases, the Council has agreed, allowing the construction of the Married Student Dormitories (Peabody Terrace) and the Cambridge underpass. (When completed, the underpass will make possible the closing of part of Kirkland St., which the University may then use for construction.)

In proposing the closing of McCarthy Rd., the University always intended to make a payment of some kind to the City. The exact form of the payment, however, remained in doubt for several months while a number of alternatives were considered.