Hanging Out There

Set back graciously from the street, the home of the Harvard Club of Boston is a stately white stone building that dominates the corner of Common-wealth and Massachusetts Avenues. Two flags snapping crisply in the spring breeze are the only movement noticeable from the outside.

Inside, all is propriety and decorum, from the high ceilings, and dark wood panelling to the hushed voices of waiters pouring coffee.

The staff itself breathes history. "Our engineer has been working here for 40 years and before that his father worked here," Club Manager Richard A. Vitali proudly notes. Vitali himself has worked for the club for just under 15 years. The club smacks of tradition.

Tomorrow, the club will begin a week-long series of events to celebrate that tradition--now 75-years'-worth. The festivities will include performances by the principals of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Din and Tonics as well as a $300-a-plate, black-tie dinner-dance to fund Harvard college scholarships.

The Harvard Club of Boston is part of a network of organizations spawned by the first Harvard Club, which was founded in New York in 1835. Today 45 clubs dot the globe, with several branches in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. However, the Boston and New York clubs remain the only organizations that own and occupy their own buildings.

The week's events mark not only the past of the institution, but also its current success. The club's revenue has jumped from $2.9 million in 1979 to nearly $4 million this year because of increased income from its dining room and the rooms it rents out to Harvard alumni.

Members also describe its current popularity in more colorful terms. David A. Mittell '39, a former club director talks of the squash courts and recounts. "In the old days you could call up the pro, tell him you wanted to play at four, and he'd have somebody for you when you got there. Now you can barely find an available court."

But the club has not always enjoyed such good fortune. The first Harvard Club of Boston, formed in 1853, collapsed after just two years because of disagreements among the membership about what function--social or intellectual--the club should serve. And when the current club was set up in 1908, many alumni opposed it--assuming it too would collapse.

In the late 1940s, the club was verging on financial failure and its facilities were rapidly deteriorating. "One day we went into an unused squash court and there was $25,000 worth of stuffed animals' heads lying in there all moth-eaten. The club had bought them in good times and then couldn't afford to maintain them." Mittell, then-director of the club, explains.

At the time, the club faced problems, which ranged from a broken elevator to "a men's room that probably wouldn't pass a board of health test."

Then-President Walter H. Trumball '15, However, returned the club to financial prosperity by raising membership dues and establishing a voluntary contribution fund. "The club once again took on the congenial atmosphere that the War and Depression had subliminated," Mittell says.

The rejuvenation of the club was completed in 1950 with the establishment of the Harvard Club of Boston Foundation, a tax-exempt organization, which now annually donates about $100,000 to the College's financial aid budget. "Our getting behind the University and really supporting it resuscitated the club immensely," Mittell says.

But members would rather reminisce about the social ups and downs of the club's history than its business affairs. "I remember when Mrs. Roosevelt spoke here. She absolutely charmed everyone, even the Republicans in the audience." Mittell says, "She was introduced by one of the members singing a song from the [Hasty] Pudding show that went 'Eleanor's here, Eleanor's there, Eleanor's everywhere!'" he recalls.

And Thorndike remembers another event the club sponsored that did not evoke such unanimous praise the "Fight Night" held in 1968. "It was an Edwardian era-type thing Men wore old-fashioned tuxes. We had cigars and brandy and a boxing ring in the center of the dining room with up-and-coming local fighters boxing against each other," Thorndike says.

The evening led the Wall Street Journal to write a rather unflattering account of the Harvard Club admonishing its "exclusivity," he says. Because of the article. Thorndike has resisted attempts to reinstute "Fight Night" to this day.

The most dramatic change at the Harvard Club in recent years was the decision in 1972 to admit women as full members. The club has not been too popular with Radcliffe alumnae, however, and even now less than 10 percent of its 4500 members are women.

Members of the club are enthusiastic-about women's presence, though. "We didn't used to think so, but it's all been for the good. They make the place much more attractive." James R. Reynolds '23 says.

Vitali uses one recent incident to illustrate the women's reception at the club. He describes the reaction when a woman member brought her baby into the dining room. "The baby started to cry and at the first wail all the members turned around and stared in complete silence. Then when the baby cried again, they let out a big cheer," he says.

"The newest change in membership policy, instituted just last year, was the extension of membership to undergraduates. Close to 150 undergraduates have enrolled as members of the harvard club for the reduced fee of $25.

Keith W. Cooper '83, one of the undergraduates who took advantage of the offer, is enthusiastic about his membership. "Basically I like to go down to use the Jacuzzi room and sit around semi-naked with a beer in my hand and watch T.V." Cooper says.

No matter how much the club changes, some aspects of the club's tradition will always stay the same. "Have you ever seen the dining room with the five-story-high ceilings?" asks David McCord '21. "There's grandeur in that room. That's the problem these days: there isn't any more grandeur. But you can still find it in that room."