Pipes Cause Flood in Barker

A pipe burst in the Barker Center last weekend, flooding and damaging parts of the building closest to the corner of Harvard and Prescott streets.

A work team has been brought in to dry the building, and a Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) spokesperson said that an investigation into the cause of the pipe break is ongoing.

The building was completely closed to all faculty and staff from the time the pipe burst some time this weekend until Wednesday, when most of the building was re-opened to faculty, staff, and students.

The African and African American Studies, History and Literature, and American Civilization offices remained closed yesterday. All of these offices are located on the Prescott-Street side of the building.

On Tuesday, construction vehicles littered the sidewalk of Prescott Street, and emergency drying machines pumped hot air into the building through large, flexible pipes made of plastic with metal ribbing.

“A pipe burst and a number of offices were flooded,” said a University employee at the scene, who refused to identify himself said. “We brought in a restoration company and are evaluating what is to be done.”

A Crimson reporter who entered the building on Tuesday saw a scene that looked more like a construction site than an academic building.

On the second floor of the building’s east side, portions of the walls near the floor had been removed and insulation bulged from the openings. Although carpets were dry at the time, some appeared to have been pulled back or removed.

Items had been piled on desks and the floors were nearly empty, aside from large industrial fans positioned every few feet. Electric cabinets were open, and power wires and the tubes feeding hot air ran across the floor.

The reporter saw one of the air tubes entering the second-floor window of African and African American Studies Department Chair Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s office and another in the window of Geyser University Professor William Julius Wilson’s second-floor office. Nothing in those offices appeared damaged, however.

In other parts of the building, workers were seen hanging plastic sheets that appeared to shield unaffected parts of the building from the restoration work.

It is unclear when faculty were notified about the leak, but with many professors out of town for the summer, the immediate impact of the closing was limited.

When asked whether Harvard had notified him about the flooding, Cabot Professor of English and American Literature and Language and Professor of African and African American Studies Werner Sollors said, “Not really.” Sollors, whose office is on the second floor of Barker on the Prescott-Street side, said that he did not know whether his office had been damaged because he had been unable to enter it since the flooding.

Wilson said in an e-mail on Wednesday that he had “just learned about the flooded offices.”

The flooding did not appear to have damaged the English Department, which is located on the opposite side of the building.

“Since I’ve been away I haven’t been to my office but was told that there is no damage,” Professor of English and American Literature and Language John Stauffer wrote in an e-mail.

Administration and University officials in charge of the building said there had been a leak but gave few details.

“There’s not too much that I can say about it at the moment except that an investigation is underway,” FAS spokesman Robert Mitchell said.

The closing of the building earlier this week did not come from an order of Harvard University Police Department (HUPD), according to HUPD Spokesman Steven G. Catalano.

—Staff writer Adam M. Guren can be reached at guren@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Samuel C. Scott can be reached at sscott@fas.harvard.edu.