Ropes Added to Quincy Stairs

Three weeks after a small child plunged from a staircase at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, workmen yesterday made temporary repairs on a similar stairway at Quincy House.

Facilities Maintenance workers installed two lengths of nylon rope along the vertical posts of the main staircase leading to the dining hall after house residents complained early this spring that the posts were so wide that children "could just walk through" them.

"The railings are about 18 inches apart and the banister is at least three feet off the ground," said Dominik Wujastyk, a visiting Sanskrit and Indian Studies scholar and father of two small children, who live in the house.

"They could just walk through," he said, "It's like an open door." Wujastyk said he complained of a potential hazard on the staircase before the Carpenter incident.

The Carpenter accident occurred April 16 when three year-old Jacob Smith fell 12 feet from a stairway. That incident led to a risk assessment reevaluation of Faculty of Arts and Sciences buildings.

Smith, whose mother appeared in the American Repertory Theater's production of Uncle Vanya, fell from the stairway to a concrete basement floor during a film-screening of the play last month. The wide staircase railing, which has alarmed employees at the center since it was built in 1963 and was noted as a hazard by a state building inspector in 1985, featured wide gaps between its horizontal bars that allowed the small child to slip through.

Wujastyk spoke with Quincy dining hall personnel about the problem "two or three months ago"--well before the Carpenter Center incident, he said.

House Superintendent Ronald W. Levesque notified Facilities maintenance of the stairway problem four to six weeks ago, said Richard A.A. Christiano, who is Facilities Maintenance supervisor for the river area.

"They had wanted something up the stairs a month ago," he said. He said that the Levesque's request did not stem from the April 16 accident but would not say whether the boy's fall may have sped work to place a temporary barrier on the Quincy stairway. Coming up with a permanent solution will be the house office's decision, Christiano said.

Assistant to the Masters Suzanne N. Watts, who said she was speaking for Levesque, said that Quincy has not found a permanent solution to the wide railings of the stairway.

Standard procedure for minor Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) building repairs calls for superintendents to independently arrange corrections with Facilities Maintenance orother contractors, said Christiano and FASPhysical Operations Director Michael N. Lichten.Lichten, who said he did not know of the Quincywork, said that FAS would be involved in anypermanent corrections to the staircase.

After it became clear that University personnelhad ignored safety problems with the CarpenterCenter railing, Associate Dean for PhysicalResources Philip J. Parsons called for increasedawareness "of the human side of safety" inaddition to standard procedures. Parsons, whoplanned to consult with all house superintendentsat a regularly-scheduled meeting after theaccident, said he would tell them to stressincreased alertness to prevent future oversights.

Parsons ordered the immediate construction ofwire fencing around all the railings of the centerand began efforts to conduct a campuswide "riskassessment survey" of Faculty of Arts and Sciencesbuildings. The wire fencing was completed lastweek