Taking Over the Neighborhood, Then and Now

During his presidency, a Harvard legend has it, John F. Kennedy ’40 once visited campus hoping to relive some of the memories of his undergraduate experience. As they trekked across the Yard, his entourage nodded along enthusiastically as he recounted tales of his mischievous first year.

To his side, the President’s Harvard tour guides looked fearful: Kennedy had requested a visit to Weld 32, his freshman dorm room. They wanted nothing more than to impress their esteemed guest, but it was impossible. During a recent renovation, Kennedy’s former room had been turned into an elevator shaft.

Changes on campus thwarted Kennedy’s trip down memory lane, but for some Cambridge residents, building projects represented a far greater inconvenience. Harvard’s expansion in the late 1950s would force many from their homes, in a pattern not altogether different from today’s planned campus expansion into Allston.

In the mid 1950s, faced with a rapidly growing demand for higher education, University President Nathan M. Pusey ’28 decided to increase the number of undergraduate Houses from seven to 10. This would make up part of the a broader expansion that would include 33 new buildings over the next decade.

The plan’s objectives stood on a firm foundation, but just over 50 years ago—in March 1957—some Cambridge residents learned that their homes did not. As the University moved forward with its plan to build Quincy House between DeWolfe and Plympton Streets, 24 families living in Harvard-owned structures were told they had until June 30 to relocate.

Given little time to find new living arrangements, many residents felt desperate. The University offered the services of a real estate agency, but some thought the agents pointed them towards housing that was well out of their price range.

“They’re very helpful if you want a $30,000 house in Lexington,” one woman told The Crimson in 1957.

While the boundaries in Cambridge between University dormitories and residential areas have been drawn since 1957, Harvard plan for Allston has resulted in echoes of the DeWolfe Street residents’ complaints.

In 1997, the University revealed that it had spent the previous decade secretly buying more than 50 acres of land in Allston, just beyond the campus of the Harvard Business School.

As Harvard revealed the full scope of its plans for the property, residents’ concerns grew. They were unprepared for the inclusion of undergraduate housing in the new design: the University is considering relocating the Quad houses—Currier, Cabot, and Pforzheimer—across the Charles River to a new home in Allston. Under the plans, some Allston residents may have to relocate.

Fifty years from now, as former residents of the Quad return for their reunion, they might stand in Harvard Square ready to embark on a nostalgic journey down Garden Street to their beloved houses. Much like JFK’s tour guides almost a century before, a sympathetic student will have the unfortunate task of pointing the bewildered alumni about a mile in the opposite direction.

—Staff writer Logan R. Ury can be reached at loganury@fas.harvard.edu.