BECK HALL FUTURE IS AGAIN UNDECIDED

After 51 years of service as a University dormitory Beck Hall and the traditions connected with it, are again threatened with destruction. It has been purchased by the Beck Hall Trust, of which G. P. Davis '14 is the trustee. Plans for the future of the building and the land on which it rests remain doubtful, but it is possible that it may be torn down to give place to a new structure to be built on the Beck Hall lot and the property abutting it on the east. The transaction has just been brought to a close.

In 1924, when the dormitory was threatened to be demolished, the late C. C. Stiliman '98 purchased it in order that it might be retained by the University as a student lodging house, and in order that its Harvard traditions might not be destroyed. Upon his death in the summer of 1926, the executors, in order to settle his estate, announced Beck Hall for sale. The present trust has purchased it "purely for business purposes," said Trustee Davis in a statement to the CRIMSON yesterday.

Built in 1876, its first owner was Miss Anna L. Mooring. Instead of willing it to the University as had been expected, she bequeathed it at her death to the Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital, which organization administered it as a dormitory for many years. After some time it was bought by a group of Harvard graduates and in 1907 again changed hands, finally to wind up in 1924 in the hands of Samuel Lebowitch, who expected to tear it down. It was at this time that it was temporarily saved by Stillman. Beck Hall has been the college residence of many of Harvard's most eminent, graduates, and records show that during the past few years, graduates have engaged rooms in it before-hand for sons still attending kinder-garten.