Parking Analysis

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

All right, so parking in front of Kirkland-Eliot-Winthrop is a fire hazard. Mr. Reynolds has said so. Since such is the state of affairs I want to know why the chain barrier is raised every night in front of Kirkland House. Twice now friends of mine have looked for someone to take the chain down in order that they could return to their own schools . . . but no one seems to have the keys. If cars cannot get out, how could fire engines hope to get in?

And secondly, why does Mr. Reynolds try to fob off such a lame excuse. Perhaps we all are not honor students, but please give us credit for a reasonable amount of intelligence. Unfortunately I have at one time or another become quite intimate with the Cambridge police. A week ago the desk sergeant down at Central Square gave me the following bit of information: He could not understand why that parking area should be a fire hazard at night and not in the day. After all, less fires start from cigarettes when the students are asleep. During the daytime students are in class, taking their car keys with them, whereas at night it is reasonable to suspect that someone might be home who could move a car in case of a fire. Furthermore, the sergeant had always assumed that the Houses were reasonably fire resistant. As the policeman explained matters to me, all this enforcement of the parking regulations started about ten years ago, just prior to the war. As he recalled if, students were allowed to park in the disputed area . . . this was obviously denying the Cambridge garage owners a nice chunk of money; consequently the local real estate lobby and the Cambridge garage owners had pressure brought to bear and this area became a fire hazard. Fine and dandy in the good old days when the student with a car was a man who had had it given to him and could afford the fifteen dollar rental fee: an allowance and a successful father were handy things to have . . . Derek L. O'Donoghue '48