A Little Plaster for Your Dreams

IN MY FIRST-FLOOR room in Barnard Hall--the newest of all Harvard buildings--the roof leaks plaster onto my bed every night.

Oh, sure, I could move my bed, but that would only partly cure my disappointment with the "spectacular" Quad renovations.

My room is nice. It ought to be, after the conditions that I and countless other Quadlings have had to put up with for the past two years: walls with holes in them, decaying bathrooms, exploding toilets, construction at 6:30 a.m.--including jackhammers right on the exterior walls of our bedrooms.

I even had the special privilege of having the windows of my room completely encased with dark cellophane, depriving my tiny domicile of all natural light and air last year.

There are some other nice rooms in recently renovated parts of Cabot House. Two of them even have fireplaces.

But many of them already have cracks in the plaster and peeling paint. This after less than a year of occupancy. Surely $20 million plus ought to have bought renovations that would last longer than a year.

A SUBSTANTIAL sum of renovations money went to constructing a new house office for Cabot House. The new space is two stories high, with glass encased offices on either side of an open arena, and it is beautiful. But Cabot House already had a house office. It also had a 10-man suite--that served as the locale for many a South House party--that had to be razed to make room for the new office.

Administrators hoped that the new house office would serve as a shuttle bus stop for Cabot residents, so that they wouldn't have to walk all the way to Currier House to catch the bus. Have you ever tried to get on the shuttle bus in the morning after it has left Currier? Getting an elephant into a Volkswagen would be easier.

Moreover, nobody really ever considered it a hardship to make the 100-yard trek from Cabot House to the Currier bus stop. After all, Quadlings' legs are strong from walking the mile-and-a-half sojourn to the River after missing the shuttle numerous times.

The site of a 20-foot hole and two 40-foot mountains where most of the quad lawn used to be is equally disconcerting. But the biggest inconvenience of renovations won't be realized until first snowfall.

On that date, the pathway down Quad Ravine--the three-foot-deep gulley crafted down the middle of the quad to allow trucks and workmen into the hole and the mountain--will become a treacherous travail through ice and snow. One can only wonder at the number of additional people on crutches due to the new alleyway.

THESE AND OTHER curiosities raise questions as to why Harvard continues to consider the Quad as a viable living space. Whether the renovations last 30 years or 30 days, the Quad will still never be any closer to the statue of John Harvard, the Coop, and Tommy's Lunch than it ever was.

The walk will never be any shorter--unless you're drunk and can't tell the difference--and, barring a substantial shift of the Equator, will never be any warmer in the winter.

Harvard was dumb to throw good money after bad in hopes of funding a dead horse. For the same $32 million it plans to spend, it could have built a brand new house--perhaps only half as ugly as Leverett or Mather--down by the River. With the money it would have spent on the shuttle bus year after year, it could have built another. Not that Harvard cares to spend any money on the shuttle bus now: after spending millions improving the quad houses, the University can't find thousands to run the shuttle on weekend days or past 1 a.m. on weeknights.

I'd love to stay and tell you more, but I've got to run and catch the last shuttle home before my ceiling falls in on my desk.