Can't See the Fogg For the Bridge

YOU HAVE TO FEEL a little bit sorry for those poor Fogg Museum administrators. They went out and rose more than $15-million, got told by the University brass that it wasn't good enough, and went and raised mother cool three million for the addition needed so desperately to alleviate their cramped space. Now the result of all that hard work is almost completed officials say the new Sackler museum, named after the man who chipped in seven million dollars for the project, will open next year but once again Fogg officials may be thwarted in their grand plans.

The reason is that Harvard wants to build a bridge that would connect the Fogg, at the edge of Harvard Yard, with the new building across the street. The proposal has met with objections from Cambridge residents and members of the City Council, who profess concern over the bridge's size, aesthetic qualities, and safety features.

Actually the problem with the structure probably has more to do with a fourth reason longstanding neighborhood mistrust over Harvard's steady encroachment through its money and power, into the city. But while this kind of worry is often warranted for many of the town gown issues which divide Harvard and Cambridge, in this case, it is way off base.

Harvard has been eminently reasonable about the whole project, holding a series of meetings to hear community concern about the issue, as well as offering to donate about $300,000 to go towards tress, landscaping, and a mini-park to spruce up the Broadway St. site. It is even offering to pay the city $16,000 a year for "air rights" over the public street. What we have here is not a pay-off, but legalized extortion.

Nor is the bridge simply a contentious whim of Fogg officials, the passageway would be an important route for safely transporting artworks from one wing to another.

The problem with the debate thus far over the bridge is that it has focused attention away from the real problem with the bridge--its aesthetic idiocy. A monstrous construction of over 150 feet in length, 18 feet wide, and 20 feet height--with a large circular 'eye' in the middle--the bridge is, well, ugly. Instead of trying to drum up support for another ideological war on Harvard. Cambridge residents should press Harvard for a tangible gain--sending architect James Stirling back to the drawing board to design us a new bridge.