If It's Town vs. Gown, Vellucci is There

Nobody remembers why, but in the early 1970s, the Harvard Lampoon fell afoul of then Councilor--now Mayor--Alfred E. Vellucci. And the semi-secret, social organization that occasionally publishes parodies came to regret it.

Some days later the Lampy's castle, which had once aimed its sphinx-like gaze down Mt. Auburn St. without obstruction, suddenly acquired a tree in front of its main portal. The arboreal eyesore stood on a scrap of city-owned land between Mt. Auburn and Bow Streets.

Vellucci was responsible.

Lampoon Narthex Paul R. Simms '88 said 'poonie lore has it that Vellucci "hoped the roots of the tree would grow and split the Castle in half."

"Ever since then we've been trying to find a legal way to get rid of the tree," said Lampoon President David S. Cohen '88. "We've been thinking of making it a home for wayward gypsy moths."

The story is one of many that University denizens recount about Cambridge's new mayor, who began his fourth term last week. Along with a long record of proposing serious legislation, Vellucci is known far and wide for his cheerful zest in thwarting Harvard.

Vellucci first made mighty Harvard sit up and take notice in the spring of 1956, during his first City Council term.

He proposed forcing Harvard to secede from Cambridge, making it a separate city similiar to the Vatican. Then he wanted to revoke the University's on-campus liquor licenses, of which there were several in those carefree days.

But the most famous threat took place when Vellucci, peeved at Harvard's reluctance to help solve the city's parking problem, announced a plan to purchase Harvard Yard by eminent domain and pave it over.

"We will cut all their trees and all their landscape after confiscating their land by police force if necessary," the freshman lawmaker declared.

Eminent domain is still in Vellucci's vocabulary. Last winter he proposed forcing the University to sell the Harvard Motor House to the city for use as a shelter for homeless people. Nothing came of that, either.

Instead Harvard is going to knock down the Motor House, which is the last moderately-priced hotel in the Square, and build a toney office complex.

Another recent Vellucci project was the creation of a community vegetable garden on the overpass between the Yard and the Science Center. Since it passes over Cambridge Street, he argued, the city owned the overpass by virtue of "air rights." Although Harvard has officially agreed with this position, the lawn and shrubbery have yet to be torn up for rutabagas.

Despite Vellucci's reputed hatred for the University, Associate Vice President for State and Community Affairs Jacqueline O'Neill isn't so sure he really means it.

"My theory is that he doesn't hate Harvard at all--but I think he does understand that institutions of themselves do not have any heart and soul. It's the people associated with them that create it," she said.

She said Harvard served Vellucci's political ambitions well as "a good foil for his populist kind of politics," adding that "when you scrape away the rhetoric," Vellucci is proud to coexist--if not cohabit--with the University.

"He tends to be a populist and relatively challenging of all institutions," said Jane H. Corlette, director of the University's governmental relations for health policy. For him, she said, "anything that comes cloaked in big money or big organization is something to be suspicious of."

Harvard isn't the only large entity to feel Vellucci's impact. The politician has left his mark on squares, streets and parks all over the city.

There are two Alfred E. Vellucci Parks in East Cambridge. The intersection of Quincy and Cambridge Streets outside Gund Hall is Dante Alighieri Square. Even Harvard Square has had some Vellucci-inspired names, including Christopher Columbus Square and, one St. Patrick's day long ago, Piazza Leprechano.

Among other revolutions in nomenclature was Vellucci's move to thwart conservative Harvard political scientists who referred to their institution as the Harvard School of Government. He won the Council's support to change Boylston St. to John F. Kennedy Street--forcing the K-School to put the name of the late president on its stationery, like it or not.

The mayor's respect for the Kennedy family is also said to be behind the naming of the Robert F. Kennedy Elementary School in East Cambridge. And his respect for Joseph DeGuglielmo, a former city manager, is now immortalized at the intersection of Brattle and Mt. Auburn Streets.