Freshmen Move Into Hotels To Escape Mass Hall Noise

Harvard is providing free hotel quarters for freshmen disturbed by noise from the crowds and public address system at Mass Hall.

Thirty-four students now reside in the Sheraton-Commander Hotel on Garden St. and two more are living in the Treadway Inn on Mt. Auburn St. for the duration of the building occupation. The Commander is now booked to capacity a hotel clerk said last night.

The students who moved are from the upper floors of Mass Hall and from Mathews North. The drums, music, and speeches from Mass Hall have made sleeping and studying inordinately difficult they said yesterday.

The blacks in Mass Hall have broadcast continually to the picketers who have been showing around-the-clock support for the PALC-Afro demands.

The freshmen are apparently enjoying the novelty of hotel life. Each room in the Commander has a color television and very comfortable beds and furnishings.

A partying atmosphere dominated some rooms last night as the visitors made ample use of ice-making machines and the close proximity to the Radcliffe Quad.

Burris Young, assistant Dean of Freshmen and proctor in Mass Hall, organized the room switches, but was unavailable for comment last night.

John Kibbe '75, whose room in Mathews faces Mass Hall, and he felt he had become more aware of African problems during the past five days. "The issue is worth my losing a few nights sleep," he said.

But few freshmen seem to share Kibbe's opinion. "I'm sympathetic to their cause." Bruce Molay '75 of Straus said, "but when a bunch of emotionalized people scream 'Right On' at 4 in the morning, it doesn't increase my sympathy."

Some freshmen have moved in with friends in the Union dorms instead of rooming in the Commander or Treadway. Others have bedded down in common rooms and living rooms further away from the activity around Mass Hall. Those who remain in their rooms say the inconvenience of transferring to the hotel outweighs the noise discomfort.