Conforming With Historic Architecture

A stop sign seems like a simple thing, but that doesn't mean a stop sign can't cause a fuss.

Next week the stop sign beside the guardhouse at Johnston Gate will be shortened to half its present size because the Cambridge Historical Commission has decided that it clashes aesthetically with the more than 200-year-old buildings that surround it.

The commission, which has authority over what structures may be put in Old Harvard Yard the quadrangle between Massachusetts and University Hails asked Harvard this week to remove or shorten the sign on the grounds that it is "incongruous" with the setting, Charles M. Sullivan, the commission's director, said Wednesday. "The sign is obtrusive as it stands," Sullivan added.

"If they hung Victorian lace on the sign, may be the [the Historical Commission] would be happy with it," said an officer at the gatehouse who asked not to be identified.

Rather than removing the sign or redecorating it. Harvard will shorten it to three to four feet, said George Oommen, who is in charge of the guardhouse and stop sign.

The Historical Commission is likely to agree to a shorter sign, Sullivan said.

But the short sign could be a hazard to passers-by, the security guard said. "They might as well remove the thing," even though that might mean that cars will again begin entering the Yard without stopping, he added.

Since the sign was put in place last November, it has made the security officers' job much easier, one officer said.

Previously the 300 to 400 cars that enter the Yard each week did not always stop at the gate, endangering passers-by. So five months ago he went to the parking department to request that a stop sign be put up.

"I recommended that it be put there because we live in the 20th century and not in the horse and buggy era," the officer said.

That sign "has got to be there" to insure easier vehicle security checks as well as pedestrian safety, Oommen said.

"The stop sign seemed to be the most logical and least obtrusive way" to do that, Oommen added.