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Construction outside and cell-like uniformity inside have caused the largest number of girls ever to move out of Holmes Hall this fall.
Thirteen girls have moved out of Holmes, leaving 82 girls in a dormitory with a capacity for 120 girls. The dorm has 39 doubles and 24 singles; 10 of these doubles have single occupants. There are only four seniors living in Holmes and over 50 per cent of the girls are freshmen.
"The girls are moving to other brick dorms rather than into off-campus houses," Carolyn Buhl, head resident of Holmes, said yesterday. Two girls have moved to Barnard, two to Eliot, two to Jordan W, five to Bertram, one to Briggs, and one to Wellmet, a half-way house for mental patients. These dorms are all much smaller than Holmes.
Pile Driver
Mrs. Buhl said that the construction underway for the fourth house has a great deal to do with the girls' moving out. "Yesterday we got a new delight--a pile driver," she said. Noise and dust make girls unwilling to leave their windows open, yet the heat makes a closed room oppressive, she added.
One of the 82 girls remaining in Holmes, Susan Richman '71 said, "I'm not bothered by the noise at all. I requested Holmes Hall and I'm glad I got it." Katherine H. Solomon '72 said, "A water pump goes all night but I'm used to living on a main street, so it doesn't bother me."
"The noise had nothing whatsoever to do with why I moved out," Tacie E. Heath '71 said yesterday. "Holmes is as warm as its size permits, but it just isn't personal enough."
"The construction noise was the final blow," Judith Bartnoff '71 said, "but I really moved out because I didn't want to live in a box just like everybody else's box."
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