The Firehouse

Harvard architectural policy is dismaying to many, but especially to those long associated with the Central Cambridge Fire House, lying between Memorial Hall and the Yard. This fire house was built in 1934 to match the brick ivy-covered buildings of Harvard. The Department took pride in having the most collegiate-looking fire house in the country. This effort and expense proved to be in vain, however, when in 1951 the University erected glassy, cinder-blocked Burr Hall across the street.

If the fire department has been frustrated in its attempt to establish harmony with its physical environment, it has succeeded with the University Administration and even with the students. The Department feels it does not have any more trouble with students at Harvard than with any other Cambridge section of comparable population. They have not been called out to hose down a riot since before the war and as Captain Francis Connelly said, "We tend to sympathize with the boys having fun rioting but we are forced to assume a serious position since the calling out of equipment for riots or false alarms can seriously endanger the rest of the community." The last major student trouble was the Freshman May Day riots of 1954 when many false alarms were answered.

The biggest recent fire at Harvard was that in the Memorial Hall Tower last fall, which Captain Connelly calls "One of the best jobs of fire-fighting I've ever seen. If men hadn't been willing to risk their lives, we would not have prevented the complete loss of the building." Other large recent Harvard fires have been those in the Union and Claverly, the latter made famous by Confidential Magazine last summer.

In addition to Engine and Ladder Companies No. 1, the Central Fire House accomodates a Rescue Company. This performs many important jobs including trying to save suicides. Lt. Paul Touchette, head of the Rescue Squad, says his squad has never been able to save a Harvard suicide. "At least its nice to be able to say," said Touchette, a member of the Harvard Band and an avid Harvard booster, "That Harvard men do a professional job, and never botch it up."

But the Cambridge Fire Department has more to do than care for Harvard. Cambridge has as many fires per capita as any other city of comparable size. This is attributable to the concentration of industry and of research at Harvard and at MIT, many of these projects involving radioactive material. Harvard also has its hydrogen furnaces, but MIT, having more dangerous research, and more food riots, has more alarms.

Despite the danger involved in answering more than one thousand alarms a year, the Cambridge firemen live a worthwhile, somewhat leisurely, self-satisfied life, a happy contrast to their neighbors living across Broadway.