Mem Hall Marks Its 75th Birthday; Cheers and Sneers Feature History

Memorial Hall, that great, disputed, stranded galleon of the Harvard state celebrates its 75th birthday this year. Once described as "the most frightening building in greater Boston," praised as a "great, bristling brick Valhalla," it has served generations of Harvard men in its multiplicity of function regardless of architectural merit.

The laying of the cornerstone three quarters of a century ago, was a ceremony complete with the presence of the Governor and the National Lancers of Massachusetts. Oliver Wendell Holmes dedicated a new poem to the infant hall, which the crowd sang to the tune of the Russian National Anthem of St. Petersburg. In its description of the scene, the Boston Advertiser wrote rapturously of "Sanders Theatre, of wondrous size, with ambulatory, vomitorium and proscenium not unlike those of classical antiquity."

Gorging Contests

The College soon found a practical use for Memorial Hall. "Board has been a problem since 1638," wrote President Eliot in 1874, referring not to the food, but to the lack of a place in which to serve it. Memorial Hall solved the problem, and became a dining hall, on the two conditions "that joints of meat shall not be carved upon the tables, and that no alcoholic beverages be used."

Students did refrain from chopping up the tables, but the second rule was not as well respected. Although white-tuxedoed waiters served, and string orchestras accompanied the evening meals, the dignity ended there. Gorging contests, in the finest Ciceronean style, were frequent. Students seemed to delight in scooping up fistfulls of sugar and waging pitched throwing battles during the course of the meal. The darker corners of the hall invariably echoed with the click of dice.

Carrie Nation once appeared and pleaded that wine jelly be dropped from the menu. Students promptly threw off her bonnet, and she was carried off on their shoulders, screaming that "everyone at Harvard is a hellion."

Meanwhile, Memorial Hall fulfilled other purposes. A galaxy of notables trooped through Sanders Theatre, including King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, in 1902. In 1910, a proposal was made to include the names of the University's Confederate dead beside those of the fallen "Boys in Blue." The suggestion began a violent row among alumni. Boston newspapers and the Alumni News were deluged with mail, mostly opposing the plan. The Cambridge Granddaughters of the American Revolution denounced the idea as an "insult to the founders of the building," and the matter was left unsettled.

Many Uses

Today, Memorial Hall has as many uses as the paper napkin. Students register there when they enter the University, and are tested there to see if they have the right to leave. In 1949, a year which contained 211 academic days, including Sundays, Memorial Hall was used for 40 concerts, 65 music rehearsals, 21 drama performances, six dress rehearsals, 12 public lectures, 22 student dances, 12 student political meetings, 15 public medical classes, three alumni gatherings, and 19 miscellaneous events; a total of 212 functions.

Janitor Speaks

Joe Trotnyck, the janitor, compares the hall to Madison Square Garden: a different event each night. "But nothing really happens any more," he complains, "I always find couples petting in the dark corners on square dance nights, and several years ago some drunken Yalies crawled up the tower to steal the bell clapper, but it's nothing like the old days. The place is a little gloomy now."

Debate over the architectural value of the hall has resulted in the consumption of many inkwells and in a multitude of witticisms. The Lampoon remarked.

"Am I thin? Quite right your conjecture, Memorial Hall is the place; We breakfast on architecture, For luncheon we simply say grace."

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge '24 wrote to the Alumni Bulletin; "The idea occured to me that Memorial Hall should be remodeled so as to make one big assembly hall out of it." The letter received hundreds of replies. In 1940, when Albert de Rhode '04 wrote, "Memorial Hall should be cherished for what it represents, not for what it may seem to the present generation. We shouldn't object to an ancestor's portrait because of his large nose."

Finley Comments

John H. Finley '25, Master of Eliot House, recently commented, "Oddly enough, I think it grows more impressive with time. I do feel a great dignity in Sander's Theatre. To that extent I think it is a fine piece of architecture."

For 75 years Memorial Hall has towered over the University scene. It has taken many insults and never talked back. But the four gargoyles on the tower give an answer eloquently enough. Facing in each direction, they stick out their tongues in a defiant answer to all critics.