wee shall be as a City upon a Hill

IT SOUNDS unbelievable now that 6000 Harvard it students rallied at Soldiers Find to strike against the University's expansionist policies in the hospital dominated Medical School area. No less difficult to conjure is the prospect of students demanding to see a master demolition plan of low income houses in the Medical School area.

In those days it was common for Harvard students to go down to the Medical School area, not to study but to organize. The tenants of Harvard on of the largest landowners in the area--were forming a bargaining unit. This unit, the Roxbury tenants of Harvard, was created to negotiate with less provide low income housing in which to relocate tenants displaced by hospital expansion.

At the University Hall sit in of April 1969, the sixth of six demands read like this: "No evictions for the 162 black and white working class families living in buildings Harvard is planning to tear down to expand its Medical School facilities in Boston."

Few people even know any more where the homes are, or that Harvard is a landlord who can dish our eviction notices to families as easily as it can issue room assignment to freshmen. And the protest is little more than an aging cover of life Magazine. But in no context does all this activity and publicity over a few homes near the Medical School teem more of a relic of the 60s then when contrasted with what is happening there now.

If the University gets its way, within a few months the face of a neighborhood will never be the same in fact, as some argue, it won't even exist anymore. Instead there will be a $200 million development $129 million Affiliated Hospitals Center, $50 million in "mixed-income" housing, and a $50 million total energy power plant.

The alignments have changed drastically since 1969, No longer is it black and white worker-hero tenants of Harvard Vs. evil landlord with expansionist, tendencies. In fact, the situation is so confused that publicity for the massive project has been stymied. Things have gotten so cloudy that a local politician, State Rep. Kevin Fitzgerald, came right out and admitted that he was "confused" about his position on the issue.

THE SITUATIONS looks like this: This Med School and other medical related institutions in the area, such as Peter Bent Brigham and Beth Israel hospitals, want build a power plant large enough to supply electricity, steam and chilled water to a city of 30,000 people they are, planning to build on Missions Hill in Boston. The eleven institutions, collectively known as the Medical Area Service Corporation known as the Medical Area Service Corporation (MASCO), claim that because of modern design a private oil-burning power plant can produce cheaper electricity more reliably than the competition Boston Edison.

After lengthy negotiations with Roxbury Tenants of Harvard (RTH), Harvard's recognized bargaining unit for the community, to provide housing in exchange for the building of the power plant, the University went ahead with plans to get Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) approval for the project. MASCO needed this approval so it could take advantage of a state law which aids developers of "blighted" land in urban renewal areas. This law makes the developer eligible for tax-exempt building if the applicant can prove to the BRA board that the land is blighted and will be benefited by renewal. In return, the applicant has to pay some taxes to the city a percentage of the project's income.

Before the BRA could approve MASCO's application, it had to determine the project's impact on the environment. By law, the BRA had to conduct an environmental impact study on the site, paid for by MASCO. The preliminary results of their report were released in May. It showed that the power plant even though it would be in the middle of a residential and hospital area would have little negative impact on the environment.

BUT THEN everything exploded. At a June public hearing to get community input on the project, residents of Mission Hill (acting outside their Harvard approved bargaining unit) erupted in anger, stopping the meeting before it ever got started, vowing to kill the plant project even if they too, not surprisingly. They still had hops for their own power plant. They cited flaws in the environmental study.

These two interest groups declared war on Harvard and the whole project. Both groups are well-organized. Edison has spent most of its time since the release of the environmental impact statement trying to discredit it, using all the muscle and "experts" it can muster to its cause. The residents, also concerned about the environmental impact, have chosen the power plant as the focal point for all their wrath against institutions they claim are out to turn their predominantly working class neighborhood into an upper class research center. And they feel that the plans will cut to the very heart of their way of life. From a speech at one of the meetings:

It is true that the area may and up looking very nice, but it won't be a neighborhood where ordinary working folk can afford to live. What's more the area won't even be a neighborhood anymore. It will become a kind of shrine to a lifestyle for those who think that a world where "the Lowells talk only to Cabots, and the Cabots only to God" is a good one. I mean, whoever heard of the Beacom Hill Little league or the Louisberg Square Women's bowling night?

They feel sold out by everyone:

Mission Hill is sick and tired of institutions telling us what to do. We're sick and tired of the BRA stepping all over us. Where are our elected officials to fight for us? Will they campaign as hard as they did for Mission Hill's vote.

Their favorite villain, throughout, is Harvard University. "Harvard Mission Hill Enemy No.1," the community newspaper headlines read. They protest the constant stream of 30-day eviction notices; they claim Harvard has encouraged "premeditated blight" by buying homes where they intend to put the power plant, letting them run down, and then proceeding to ask for redevelopment power under the law. They see it as a struggle to survive.

For Edison there is another type of survival at stake. The company, already beleagured by tax problems with city, will take a major loss if it loses the MASCO institution's account. Edison is also jealous of the tax package MASCO may get it the deal goes through. That package would requred the institutions to pay about $1.1 million yearly, while Edison claims it would pay about $5 million in taxes on the delivered power.

Neither group buys the contention that Harvard has recently put fourth, that the housing cannot be built without the power plant. The developers claim that housing money is so tight that there are no funds for the complex to have its own steam boilers, so the power plant is a must.

Both groups will need all their current resources and more if the respect to beat Harvard and its MASCO. The University has the expertise to make an informed argument as to the benefits of its total energy power plant. And it has an depth plan which promises to supply the hospitals with power by 1978, the last year the institutions claim they can operate under the existing system. Although Edison has a joint plan that could do the same, it is apparent that the community groups challenging the Harvard MASCO plant would not take kindly to an Edison plan either.

ALTHOUGH IT is impossible to predict what will happen in the next few months on Mission Hill, several possibilities could occur. The BRA will probably hold as many community meetings as possible until it determines it can go ahead and hold a board meeting on the project without running headlong into violent community opposition. At that point, largely because the Mission Hill opposition lacks clout with City Hall in this highly political process, the BRA can in the long run give Harvard the go-ahead to break ground.

At that point several things could happen: Mission Hill residents may literaly strap themselves to the building, creating a visible, ugly, and graphic presentation of Harvard bulldozing over community people for all to see, This could cause a fierce political reaction and force the BRA or the medical institutions to back down and compromise.

The new environmental impact laws provide an excellent means for the opposition small or large, to defeat the project by tying it up in the courts. Edison has already gone on record saying it will file suit if MASCO receives its project approval. The battle may go on for so long that the institutions would again settle for compromise, It is odd that a decision to build or not to build should be settled in the courts, when judges have the least amount of expertise in terms of environmental danger. But the environmental laws give them that power.

Of course there is always the more than likely possibility that Harvard will win in court and the same lack of visibility that has haunted Mission Hill people in the past will plague them again. Harvard will then go ahead and build a power plant on top of anybody it want. But right now, the situation is hot enough and the opposition strong enough, to make Harvard's earlier statements about how there will be ground-breaking for the power plant in the next few weeks a very alight hope.