City Council Blasts Ed School Castle

The Harvard Education School castle to be constructed this summer on Appian Way across from Longfellow Hall came under heavy fire in Cambridge City Council yesterday.

"It looks like a wartime concrete bunker seven stories high," said Councilman Daniel J. Hayes, who offered a resolution requesting Harvard officials to present their plans for the castle at a future council session. The resolution passed by a 6-2 vote.

The seven story castle with massive walls, a moat like courtyard and practically no windows will be located next to historic Christ Church, Cambridge.

The council is presently considering an ordinance creating an Historic Area Commission which would protect the historic atmosphere of some Cambridge areas including Appian Way. Harvard has already received a zoning board permit for the castle and it is considered unlikely that the Council would actually attempt to halt construction.

Hayes called the Council's attention to "the great battle over another building next to the Cambridge Common two years ago." He stated that the castle "may even be far worse than that building." Hayes was referring to John Bristol Sullivan's plan to construct a fifteen story building on stilts over part of Harvard Square. The Sullivan plan was strongly opposed by Harvard.

Councilor Walter Sullivan, brother of J.B. Sullivan, said after the Council meeting that Harvard's castle should not go up "until we have a building on stilts in Harvard Square."

Opposition to the castle also came from usually pro-Harvard Councilor Cornelia Wheeler who protested that the "aesthetic and historic aspects of the Brattle Street-Appian Way area would be ruined" by construction of the castle.

Even Mayor Edward A. Crane '35 had reservations. "I think Harvard went a little oo far on this one," he stated.

Support for the castle came from the unusual combination of Councilmen Alfred E. Vellucci and Joseph A. DeGuglielmo '25. DeGuglielmo objected to the Council becoming involved in aesthetic judgements on local architecture. Vellucci merely said, "I think the building would be lovely." He later added, "It's even better than the Lampoon, which is the ugliest ever."