A Friend of the Students

"Harvard students have been giving me the business for 29 years," reports Benny Jacobson, Harvard Square's King of Kleaning. Benny is a self-admitted "University personality," and few would contest the point. Owner of the Gold Coast Valeteria at 30 Plympton Street, this former second-string halfback for Boston English High School is one of the biggest supporters of the Crimson football team.

Benny takes a personal interest in all of Gold Coast's 3,500 customers and is very anxious to get to know all of the new students entering this fall. "I used to visit the new men in their rooms, but now I ask them to drop by the Gold Coast so that they can see how we do business." Benny remains silent about his benefactions, but there are countless happy graduates, leading successful lives graduates, leading successful lives today, who Benny got out of jams while in College.

Among the persons Benny has been able to help in the past are many of Harvard's top athletes, and the Crimson football team has no more consistent fan. Each year Benny gives a party for the current and old players after the Yale game; last November 180 men their girls attended the affair.

"Harvard deserves a winning team," Benny says, "and Harvard is going to have one."

Of Direct Service

Many stories are circulating around Harvard about Benny's relations with the football team. In 1947, Benny saved the team from a disastrous season by bucking up its spirit before the Brown game in which the Crimson came out of a slump to win, 13 to 7. During the last 23 years Benny has missed only one varsity football game--the one at Stanford which Harvard lost 44 to 0.

He was of direct service to the squad in 1947 while the players were taking a terrible physical beating from Virginia, 47 to 0. During a time-out period late in the game, there was no one left to carry out the water bucket, so Benny did. Time came back in sooner than Benny expected, and he just had time to dash off the field on the opposite side from the Harvard bench.

Benny was a close friend of Dick Harlow, the Crimson's great coach from 1935 to 1947, and went to practice every day for 10 years, "Sometimes it would get very cold, and I would borrow a Harvard sheepskin to keep warm." Benny remembers well a closed practice scrimmage with Boston College in which the managers were turning everyone away at the fence. "Dick Harlow put a helmet on me, and when the men stopped me in spite of that, he turned to me and said, 'Come on, coach, you're coming in'. Imagine him calling me coach."

Benny's attitude towards the Crimson eleven was best summed up by Sid, one of his assistants: "Win or lose, Benny doesn't forget them when they're down."

Grandfather of Two

Although the grandfather of two (his son is a veteran of Bastiogne), Benny remains young at 49 and won't consider retiring until he is "at least 85." "Only eight years ago, I was up in the Yard with my hat on, and one of the policemen came up to me and asked me when I was going to graduate."

Almost 300 men cross the Gold Coast's threshold on a busy day, and the staff knows everyone by name; among them are the sons of some of Benny's early customers.

Benny sums up his views, stressing the "importance of good fellowship." "When I make a friend, I work awfully hard to keep him." In that spirit, the Gold Coast offers a great many extra services. For years alumni have been calling him to get tickets to the football games, knowing his close friendship with many of the players. This year the Gold Coast has expanded its facilities by becoming a ticket agency for sports events and even plays.

Students use the Gold Coast to cash checks. On a football Saturday when the banks are closed, Benny will cash between $1,200 to $1,500 in checks for his customers. A couple of years ago, one of Benny's men cashed an eight dollar unsigned check; it was shown to all who entered the store for some weeks afterwards, but no one could identify it.

Can Have Confidence

Entering students can have confidence in the Gold Coast, based on the fact that at least 25 deans and professors do business with it. This laundry is the only one which devotes itself exclusively to serving the Harvard market, and the only exception that Benny makes is that he still serves 75 graduates who live nearby--another sign of the satisfaction gained from dealing with Benny.

Benny likes to talk about his business and admits he still has things to learn from his customers. "Water is free at our laundry; we have a Venetian--I mean artesian--well. And water is a big item in laundering. We are able to use more water and don't have to use the heavy chemicals that eat away the threads."

Benny owns the building in which his shop is located, the Harvard Advocate building "which is a traditional Harvard building." He rents out the upstairs only to Harvard organizations--the Bat Club and the Advocate "which is a traditional publication." Interested mostly in Harvard, Benny feels "Harvard is getting along all right. Harvard will always be Harvard."

Benny isn't talking about what he has done for Harvard, but others report that typical problems he solves for students concern trouble with studies, an automobile accident, or sometimes more serious mishaps which involve students. "It seems that all difficulties are smoothed out in my office."

"Perhaps it would be possible to get President Truman and Stalin down to the Gold Coast Valeteria and give us a chance to bring about a peace pact."