Coop Favors Pedestrian Mall for Palmer Street

The Harvard Cooperative Society would like to have Palmer St. turned into a "pedestrian mall" with all traffic except supply trucks prohibited, one of the Coop's directors said Monday.

Louis Loss, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, made the proposal while urging the City Council to permit the Coop to build a bridge over Palmer St. Loss said the roadway and the present sidewalks would be replaced with an attractive and functional brand of brick and that other aesthetic improvements could be made.

The idea for a pedestrian mall may have come from Sheldon Dietz '41 who has persistently fought the Coop's new annex on the grounds that present plans would detract from Palmer St.'s aesthetic qualities.

An ally of Dietz's the landscape architectural firm of Moriece and Gary, whose Church St. offices look straight down Palmer St., have drawn up a plan for improvement of the Church Palmer St. area. The plan calls for two small plazas (one at the rear of the Harvard Trust Company and the other on Church St.) and an underground garage with a 200-to-300 car capacity.

Dietz used the plan at various public hearings to demonstrate what he suggested could be done to the area. The plan also envisions the construction of a path through the graveyard at Church St. and Mass. Ave., as a shortcut to the Square.

According to Benjamin W. Gary Jr., the eventual hope is that Palmer St. will be turned into a pedestrian mall with supply trucks permitted only during specific hours of the morning and afternoon.

The plan called for trees to line the side of Palmer St. where the Coop is building its new annex. This would require the annex to be set back eight feet from the edge of the sidewalk; spokesmen for the Coop said Monday that the building had progressed too far to make such a significant change.

There would also probably be some problems in building the plaza and underground garage on Church St., for they would have to be built on parcels of land owned by both the University and the Cambridge Community Services.

Despite the proposal for the mall, Dietz remained skeptical yesterday of the Coop's sincerity. He criticized the Coop's haste in constructing the present annex without first discussing the rational development of the Palmer St. area.