JFK Library: Future Shock in the Square

FUTURE SHOCK HAS COME to Harvard Square.

A monument to Camelot--the impending John F. Kennedy Library Center--is transforming the area. Already, a shopping mall is rising next to Holyoke Center, acrylics are replacing brick storefronts, rents are rising out of sight, and soil experts are boring into the Common and MBTA yard. And much more is coming.

By the time graduating seniors return for their fifth reunion, at least two highrise buildings will tower over the Square. Over a million tourists a year will be visiting the Kennedy Library on the 11-acre MBTA site across from Eliot and Kirkland Houses. Streets will have been rerouted to handle new floods of traffic. Coffeehouses and bookstores will have fled before an onslaught of hotels, tourist shops, and hamburger stands. Parking facilities will be swamped, and construction of an MBTA Redline extension, out to the Fresh Pond shopping center, will be underway.

Such changes will electrify the economy of the Harvard Square area. But a number of Cambridge residents, civic groups, and even businessmen are warning of a definite potential for catastrophe.

Francis H. Duehay '55, dean of Admissions and Studies in the Graduate School of Education, local resident, and City Council member, thinks the Kennedy Center "will almost certainly increase congestion to a barbaric extent."

Nancy Brigham, a member of the Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee, sees the Center leading to rent hikes which will drive low and middle income residents out from surrounding areas.

Cyrus Harvey, owner of the Harvard Square Theater and a leading force behind a local group called Planning for People, predicts "total disaster" if nearby neighborhoods aren't protected from swarms of visitors and if the business district is not integrated with the Center.

Robert Bowyer, head of Cambridge's Department of Planning and Development, worries that the character of the Square may be corrupted by the influx of tourists.

Of course, most recognize that the Kennedy Center--a complex including a library, archives, the Kennedy School of Government, and possible "related structures"--may prove to be the greatest blessing to the economic vitality of the Square in this century. But it doesn't assuage the fear that the ingredients of success may be ruined in the mixing, turning the Square into an ugly fusion of traffic jams, parking lots, and tickey-tac, thereby destroying the small stores and whatever remains of the Square's college-town atmosphere.

Changes have been expected ever since the trustees of the Kennedy Corporation--the group overseeing construction of the Center--announced their plan in the mid-sixties to move the Library onto the MBTA site. A year ago, the Cambridge Planning Office began assembling a seven-volume master plan to cope with the difficulties expected to arise.

Volumes I through V of the Plan are nearly done. They survey the success of previous planning efforts, planning philosophies, raw census data, traffic flow, and the visual environment of the Square.

Volumes VI and VII, concerned with the issues peculiar to Harvard Square and the actual plan itself, will not be ready until September. But through conversations with Planning Department officials, the following proposals seem likely to emerge in some form:

*Extension of the MBTA subway line out to Fresh Pond or another point near the Alewife Brook Parkway. Traffic studies--largely complete--show that most Mass Ave traffic has at least one endpoint in Cambridge, making extended rapid transit feasible.

*Elimination of some streets and redirection of others. Surprisingly, the planners say, traffic can often be handled better on a small number of streets because the number of intersections and junctions declines. Planning officials also believe that introducing one-way streets where two-way streets now stand would help smooth traffic flow.

*Improvement of parking facilities. Parking for the expected avalanche of tourists will be provided largely by a lot, possibly underground, on the Library site. A $225,000 study is also currently in progress to explore the desirability of an underground garage at the Cambridge Common.

The completed plan will be submitted to the City Council in early fall, following review by Kennedy Center officials and a task force of residents, civic leaders, and merchants.

Contours of the Kennedy Center are somewhat more cloudy. About two acres of the 11-acre site will be given to Harvard for the Kennedy School of Government. A large plaza, called Commonwealth Plaza in appreciation of Massachusetts' grant of the MBTA land, will extend over much of the area. Open air parking for at least 600 cars, and more probably 1000, will be provided by the Library. The ceremonial entrance to the Center will stand at the corner of Memorial Drive and Boylston Street.

But size and placement of buildings remain undecided. And the status of "related structures" for the site--apartments, a hotel, or luxury stores--appears less and less certain.

According to Bowyer, Kennedy Corporation officials had planned to use piles now supporting MBTA buildings for the related structures. Last month, however, soil engineers working with architect I.M. Pei found the old piles to be useless and new piles prohibitively expensive. Consequently, Bowyer said, related structures aside from a restaurant and souvenir shop would be a 'second-stage' project, when more money will be available.

Bowyer said that the cost of the second-stage project might be lowered by combining an underground garage with the related structure complex, thereby eliminating the need for piles altogether. Such a complex would "float" in the marshy subsoil, but would be limited in height to six or eight stories.

Across from the Harvard Square Post Office, adjacent to the Library site, plans are definitely underway for a high-rise building. Kanovas Corporation intends to plant a 19-story structure on the site and has already received permits needed to begin excavation. Planning Department officials report that Kanovas is considering construction of a Holiday Inn.

About eight blocks from the Square, near William James Hall, an even taller building appears imminent. Harvard recently announced plans to build a 22-story tower and six four-story townhouses, for University affiliated families, on a wooded five-acre site known as the "Shady Hill Estate." Opposition to the project seems certain: already, the Cambridge Conservation Commission, low-income housing advocates, and local residents have expressed dissatisfaction with the development. Because of the controversy, construction will probably not be completed in the scheduled two-year period.

A third highrise will loom on Boylston Street, midway between the Kennedy Center and the center of the Square. Soil engineers, contracted by Cambridge landlord Max Wasserman, are testing the peat and clay subsoil to determine what size structure the ground can economically support. The land is zoned for both office space and housing; given the relative surplus of office space in the Boston area, the choice will probably be housing.

One of the engineers guesses that ten stories would be a probable height for the structure, an estimate confirmed by a planning department official after talks with Wasserman. Wasserman, however, has not announced his intentions for the site.

Other Wasserman projects have provided most of the signs to date of the Square's impending transformation.

Rent hikes from 100 to 400 per cent have driven over 18 small businesses from Wasserman property. Renovation--exterior and interior--of buildings along Mass Ave. Mt. Auburn and Boylston Streets has updated some of Harvard Square's oldest buildings. And Wasserman has pioneered in developing unified designs for abutting stores, such as Cahaly's and Tommy's Lunch.

Wasserman's most expensive Harvard Square development currently underway consists of changing a sizeable garage, at the corner of Mt. Auburn and Boylston Streets, into a shopping mall. The mall, tentatively to be named "the Garage," will contain specialty and craft shops and spread over half a block. A pedestrian walk will connect Boylston Street to Dunster Street. Work on the Garage has been in progress since winter, and the mall should open for occupancy this fall.

The effect of the Kennedy Center, then, will clearly be staggering. It has already sparked a construction boom of awesome power--a boom which will look insignificant when compared to the commercial explosion expected to attend the Center's opening. Tax-ridden Cantabrigeans are likely to appreciate a new sluice of tax revenues, and some consumers may prefer modernized shopping areas.

Equally clearly, the problems will be immense. The character of the Square--already more commercial and chain-store oriented--will move progressively away from specialty stores and coffee shops. Parking will become harder. Driving through the Square will probably become a task of stupendous proportions. Tenants will have to bear higher land values, which will ultimately translate into higher rents, and live with a new skyline. Pedestrian traffic will swell by as much as half or two thirds.

But, barring acts of God or a radical sweep of city elections, the transformation of Harvard Square is unstoppable. Whether the class of '72 spends its fifth reunion in a honky-tonk tourist trap, or a thriving, accessible, commercially diverse Harvard Square, will be known--soon.

Parking will become harder. Driving will probably become a task of stupendous proportions. Pedestrian traffic will swell by as much as half or two thirds.

The development may turn the Square into an ugly fusion of traffic jams, parking lots and tickey-tac.