Noisy Leverett Roars to Prominence

Present size of House: 339.

Vacancies for freshmen: about 110, all but three in completely empty suites.

Rooms for freshmen: many three-man suits (converted doubles), some in other categories including one five and six man suite.

Price range of House rooms: $110 to $300 per term.

"Perhaps the House coming nearest to the original conception of the House system is Leverett."

So said the Alumni Bulletin last term. And the spirited, close-knit Bunny Hutch--with a band for its football games, a 'six-foot rabbit for its mascot, and a riot for its weekends--is still the House it's most fun to live in.

Leverett wasn't always like this. After the war, it was one of the last Houses to re-open and got going very slowly. When the CRIMSON polled the Yard last year, only two percent of the class saw a bunny in their upperclass future.

The CRIMSON said so--in inch-high headlines--and Leverett blew up. It rioted on Plympton Street; it marched to the Union; lolly-pop-sucking, panty-waist "freshmen" whined why they had chosen Leverett.

The Bunnies built their own high table, and the diners hung their hats on the chandelier. They knocked together a Leverett House tower, then dug a well underneath to make it taller. And this sort of thing has been going on ever since.

Trapeziform Dining Hall

Leverett has its own Spring weekend coming up: derbies on the Charles. Its Civic Improvement Society chisels fossils from the showers and surveys the House's trapeziform dining hall. On the bulletin boards, blatant posters describe sports victories as "Pookahs Paw Listless Lowell, 3-1."

On the saner side, Leverett runs a dance band, a forum, a darkroom and Lens League, a Gilbert-and-Sullivan operatic society, a glee club, a marching band, and the usual complement of committees.

But rah-rah is not forced on the incoming Bunny. He can take it or leave it, and no one will exhort him to "be one of the boys." A fair part of the House never shows up for the entry beer parties or even the traditional Leverett riots; for most, though, the spirit is contagious.

Unpoetic Views from Mather

Among its drawbacks, Leverett gets food from the central kitchen skulleries. Another disadvantage lies in the broken-up entries of Mather, one of the two sections of the House. No great poetry will ever be written about the view from Mather Hall, but the clapboard tenements, rubbernecking down on the Mather courtyard, also leer at Leverett's private tennis court, the only one in the Houses.

Hutch suites range from the largest in the newer Houses--sleeping six--to those architectural after-thoughts sidling around corners. Most rooms are in between; the dining-hall, incidentally, is very large, and tables are always at hand for groups of the most bizarre sizes.

Leverett's Library is strongest in English. The common room subscribes to about ten magazines, and television is relegated to a basement chamber.

Master Leigh Hoadley is genial and friendly; but he lets students have the bigger hand in running House affairs. Hoadley and his House committee invented the junior-senior dinner, which other Houses have picked up. They are also responsible for entry beer parties, which at riotous Leverett often demand a great sense of toleration.

Other members of the staff include several big names, but most students don't know them: dinner-table tutorial is largely neglected.

Once, Leverett was the House where, if you applied, you were accepted. Today Leverett is where Leverett men enjoy themselves just because they're in Leverett.