Living (in) a Nightmare

It's getting a little ridiculous. For a lot of first-years, including me, being assigned to live in 29 Garden Street didn't seem all that bad, at first.

We have large rooms, bathrooms within our suites and, uniquely, kitchens. We have our own building superintendent. Our location above the Harvard University Police Department makes us, reportedly, the safest students on campus.

And Associate Dean of Freshman W. C. Burris Young, who kindly organized breakfasts in our common room during the winter reading period, lives just upstairs.

Of Course, there were the minor inconveniences--having to walk three-quarters of a mile to the Yard, for one. Our rooms have no molding or boards to hang things from.

In case of lockouts, we must call Harvard Real Estate, because Harvard security guards don't have keys to our rooms. We have what might be the world's slowest elevator, and our building rivals Canaday Hall for its aesthetic unappeal.

Naturally, we eat many meals in the Quad, as the Freshman Union is almost a mile away. The students at Currier, Cabot and North Houses have generally been quite courteous and sympathetic to our plight, and have tolerated this invasion of first-years.

But, for some undisclosed reason, this winter the lists began. The Quad's dining hall ID checkers had lists of the posed to be eating at their respective houses.

We were assigned to specific houses, by proctor group, rotating every month. "If this is Currier, it must be April," goes the thinking now.

We did not think this was so bad in the beginning, except that Cabot invariably locked its doors. It has, however, turned out to be the crowning insult added to an ever-increasing list of discomforts.

We live in, quite possibly, the worst housing at Harvard.

Outside my room used to hang (until it was removed by overzealous inspectors) a chart detailing the number of fire alarms at 29G. At last count, we were up to nine. Several of these happened late at night. One of them happened in the morning during finals.

That's what happens when you give first-years kitchens, right? Of course.

But we did not ask for kitchens. We did not ask for the absurd hypocrisy of having an oven and range, but not being allowed to have a coffee maker. We would gladly give up our kitchens to live peacefully in the Yard.

Many of these alarms were not even our fault; four of them were caused by overheating in the building's boiler room.

The problems with the boiler are even worse. For almost a full day during the winter, we did not have hot water. Apparently, the hot water main broke while a small leak was being fixed.

During the winter we also became acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of the building's heating system. People on the fourth floor shut their radiators completely off and were still sweltering--we were opening windows in January. Meanwhile, people on the first floor were chilled with their radiators on full-blast.

Finally, when I returned to 29G in the afternoon last Monday, I discovered a great deal of yellow CAUTION tape around one side of the door way, and a construction crew tending a large hole outside. When I entered the elevator, I saw a sign that read, "Important: Due to a leak in the main water supply, the water will be shut off until further notice." How quaint.

Little can be done about most of these problems. The building can't be immediately overhauled, and it can't be put into the Yard. But the ridiculous dining regulations can be fixed.

We are in rather curious position, as the only Harvard students differentially excluded from interhouse dining. Generally, either a house has interhouse dinning, or it doesn't; it doesn't have interhouse for some people meeting specific criteria and not for others. For those of us on the fourth floor, we are the only students at Harvard who cannot eat at North and Cabot through the month of April. If we have friends in these houses, we cannot eat with them. Moreover, we cannot even eat with our friends from different floors of 29G.

If we wish to eat at the Quad with some Yard first-years, they must eat in our specific house, even though they, unlike us, have the freedom to eat at any of them.

March was house-touring season, during which first-years like to eat at different houses to see what they're like. We could not eat at Cabot or Currier in March.

Students living at 29 Garden Street already suffer from a kind of stigma; few Yardlings are willing to make the trek to visit their friends, and if we're with friends at night in the Yard, we have to worry seriously about getting home safely.

These kinds of differential eating privileges separate us further, and even separate us from our fellow Garden-Streeters.

On behalf of everyone at Garden Street, I note that the current system is adding insult to injury, and ask that it be stopped.