Episode on North Harvard Street

( The following article was written and photographed on October 16, before it was known that an injunction that day would give these people a brief reprieve during which they could move back into their houses. )

THE POLICE blocked off North Harvard Street from the Business School to Western Avenue. Two police paddy wagons stood ominously in front of some old buildings, across from the Harvard University Press. A crowd of people lined the far side of the street and some pressed around Mrs. Zalesky who had just been kicked out of her house. "Only in America," she said, "Only in America."

Mrs. Zalesky, who was the only owner present at the time, was talking to the cameramen and reporters who watched. They seemed to be the only friends she had then. "I still have a little courage left," she sobbed. "I went to work today. They called me on the phone and told me. I passed out or something. My boss helped me and I came back here. It was awful." She vented some of her anger at the men in buttons and blue. The reporters asked her where she was going to spend the night. She did not know. Eventually a friend came and she left with her, shutting the gate behind her.

After she left, the crowd turned to watch the moving of the Redgate's furniture into trucks which supposedly then took it to a warehouse. The windows and doors of Redgate's store, which was next to their house, had been boarded up.

Underneath some trees nearby, Mrs. Holland sat in her car. She had been kicked out earlier and now sat silently weeping. Her old gray car had a faded and curling sticker in the back window which said "Support Your Local Police."

The crowd grew and people began to mumble to each other. Except for the TV producers and the blue-coated representatives of the power structure, they were from the lower class, white and over 30. There were a lot of faded blue and green overalls. The outsiders wore suits.

"You never think this could happen," one man said. "But it could happen to me." One lady, Miss Irenic Burns, had come over from South Cove where she said she was faced with a similar situation. "This was what the Jews did to the Arabs," she said. She looked out to the Street, "All those cops for two old ladies." The crowd appeared to resent the police, but the police did not seem to be enjoying their job. One man pointed out that they were only doing a task they hated. If they refused to do it, they could be fired.

After the Redgate's furniture had been moved out, 16 policemen formed a double line leading from the door.

There was a long wait, evidently while the Chief Deputy Sheriff, Robert Tobin, tried to persuade the Redgates to leave. The Redgates, however, were not going to give up that easily. Finally, someone came out with Mrs. Redgate, leading her by the hand.

"God Bless America," sang the people in the crowd.

In a few minutes, Mr. Redgate was carried out and deposited on his steps. Someone in the crowd yelled out "pig."

A piece of plywood was brought and nailed over the doorway. "O. K. Let's get out of here," said the Chief Deputy Sheriff, and the police got in their trucks and drove away.

The press then shifted over to Mr. Redgate and asked him some questions. "God bless you, Mr. Redgate," a woman in back of me said. After the interviews, Mr. Redgate took a drag on his small cigar and talked with some of his friends.

I listened to a couple of people who were talking nearby. One man had been kicked out of his house to make way for an expressway. He was lucky, he got a good price.

"They had a nationwide moratorium yesterday." one woman said, "and what good did it do? The turn around the next day and kick people out of their homes." "How can they do this?" she asked.

"All across the country they kick people out of their houses just to build other ones for people with more money. Where will they go?" "On the expressways," said the man, "We can all live on the expressways."