To The Queen’s Head

I’ll admit I had very specific expectations before move-in day. Those restless August nights gave way to fever dreams. A tweed-clad throng led the class of 2010 on an inaugural foxhunt through the Old Yard. I developed a close relationship with Harvey C. Mansfield ’53, the manly Kenan Jr. Professor of Government with a heart of gold. We ate at a candlelit table; Plummer Professor of Christian Morals Peter J. Gomes made clear which fork was for which dish.

Six months later, none of it has materialized. I sought port but got Powerade. The extracurricular fair was especially Kafkaesque. What’s this “Bah’ai,” for example? When will the Veritones get around to singing “God Save the Queen”? Why am I the only one wearing jodhpurs? Harvard was hardly the sheltered time capsule I wanted—needed—it to be.

But all this disappointment will be laid to rest in April with the opening of the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub. Old crew pennants from the Henley Cup, portraits of a positively paternal A. Lawrence Lowell, Former Unviersity President, and all manner of similarly rich Harvard bric-a-brac will adorn the walls of the space under Memorial Hall, in the shadow of the stifling modernity of the Science Center. Who’s laughing now, Jonas Salk?

The pub’s opening date has been twice delayed since the project began, but I can’t complain—the musky, old-world luster we have every right to expect isn’t built in a day. The moment I get anxious about another abrogated deadline, I just assume they hit a water main putting in the Roman baths. I find it’s an effective stress reducer.

Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 has said that he hopes the pub will feel, instantly, as if it’s “part of the Harvard tradition.” Judging by the architectural sketches, which depict bookshelves (made of what I would hope is stolen Honduran mahogany) and an arbitrary globe perched on Oriental carpet, he’ll get his wish.

So it’s shaping up to be an excellent place to unwind after boorish Core lectures, wring one’s hands about the upstarts in the Student Labor Action Movement and share a scandalized chortle over “Sex and the Ivy.” I find its frankness refreshing and I don’t care who knows it.

At Harvard, we are so immersed in the immense modern world that we seldom get the opportunity to truly pretend we’re living in the 1940s, chatting about the Lend-Lease Act, before all this “green campus” propaganda kicked into gear. Perhaps it’s time Harvard started relentlessly exploiting its long, gilded past, no?

The Queen’s Head will be a pleasant counterpoint to the orgiastic, fluorescent bear-pit that is the Lamont Café. Hopefully, it will obtain the Café’s popularity while sustaining the grandfatherly allure of the fifth floor’s Farnsworth Room—the last of the great laptop-free zones.

What’s more, the pub will serve its own unique brand of beer produced by Boston’s Harpoon Brewery, proudly named 1636. Student, drop that Pabst: This is the alcoholic equivalent of the Veritas waffles. You can even taste the pretension.

We Harvard students are daily dazed by the unforgiving neon glow of modernity, and we need our reactionary refuge. And if we can’t recline in the storied pubs of Oxford or Cambridge, our coming college tavern mockup is as close as we’ll get.



James M. Larkin ’10, a Crimson editorial editor, lives in Matthews Hall.