The Grass Is Greener at Cabot

For many rising sophomores, there is no worse fate than being "quadded"--assigned to one of the three distant dorms that once housed students from Radcliffe College.

But despite the stigma attached to the quad as a whole--the area that includes Cabot, Pforzheimer and Currier House--the grass may actually be greener up Garden Street.

The grassy Radcliffe Quadrangle, surrounded by Cabot House on three sides and Pforzheimer on one, is a haven for sports enthusiasts and sunbathers alike.

Once crisscrossed with paths like in Harvard Yard, the quad was converted to a genuine grass-covered field in the 1970s and what has resulted--a simple rectangular "courtyard"--is one of Harvard's greatest successes, according to many Cabot residents.

"I live for spring on the quad," says Luvh A. Rakhe '01. "There is just nothing better."

Students in the four Cabot House buildings that border the area look out their windows on a center of nearly constant activity in the warm weather--starting out at first light with Cambridge dog-walkers and continuing long past the dinnertime barbecues.

For Rakhe, three things characterize the quad spring: "Pick-up sports, barbecues and lots of people."

And as the ground begins to thaw, the residents of Cabot, Pforzheimer and Currier gravitate toward the field that unites them. Games of soccer and ultimate frisbee seem to dominate the quad's main strip, with pockets of students studying, talking and sunbathing on the periphery.

Alexander H. Gourevitch '00, who has spent much of his time in Cabot shouting at the windows of friends who ignore his summons to join a soccer match, says the quad gives Cabot an unmatched social dynamic.

"People just come out of the woodworks--people you didn't even

know lived in your house appear," he says. "In the spring, the whole place kind of comes alive."

--Nathaniel L. Schwartz