A Half-Century of Flouting the Mainstream at Dudley Co-op

There is a certain mural that the historian of the Dudley Co-op, an alternative living community several blocks from the Quad, doesn’t want to show off.

It is the “Tribute to Karl Marx” at the 3 Sacramento St. location, where about half of the Co-op residents live. The painting has a red star over the phrase “Workingmen of the world, unite!” written in several different languages.

Over the years, residents have papered over parts of the work with various photographs, including one of Marx himself and another of Captain Picard from Star Trek. Off to the side, someone has doodled “Capitalism = love.”

So the historian, Tyler G. Neill ’07-’08, was quick to note that the Co-op is not the hotbed of communism or granola-crunching hippies that it once was.

Regardless of its makeup today, the Co-op’s historical reputation does blush pink. Co-opers embraced that fact about a month ago with a sense of humor and of irony, hosting a communist-themed party.

The remnants of the event—like a sign with Stalin warning partygoers not to smoke lest they be sent to Siberia—were still scattered around the Co-op recently.

The Co-op is part of Dudley House, a community made up of both students from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and undergraduates living either in the Co-op or off-campus. The Co-op buildings are owned by Harvard and are technically classified as on-campus, though they are certainly removed from the rest of the Houses.

The Dudley Co-op, which celebrated its 50th birthday on Saturday with a reunion open to all its alumni, has been revised, painted over, and tweaked by its residents over the years. But since its inception as a cheaper alternative to the upperclass Houses, it has maintained a fiercely independent, tight-knit, and free-wheeling nature that has provided a valuable replacement for traditional House life for some students.

STEPPING OUT OF THE IVORY TOWER

The Dudley Co-op was founded in 1958, nearly 30 years after the creation of the House system, as a way for financially-strapped students to defray their costs of living. It has inhabited the same two buildings throughout its entire lifetime—the one on Sacramento St., where the kitchen, dining room, and common spaces are located, and another a stone’s throw away at 1705 Mass. Ave.

The first set of residents, all men, did their own cleaning and maintenance but hired Radcliffe women to cook dinner for $10 a night. In the fall of 1966, James G. Maslach ’69 instituted the practice that Co-opers would prepare their own dinners in order to save money, a custom that lives on today. The Co-op began housing women by the early ’70s.

The meals were not always strictly vegetarian, as they are now.

Former Co-President of the Co-op Ronald E. Stiskin ’85-’86 recalled one contentious community meeting between the carnivores and the vegetarians who had “moral scruples” about allowing their money to go to the purchase of meat.

Until fairly recently, meals ended up being vegetarian by practice, before purchasing meat with group funds was explicitly banned.

The preparation of food is not the only part of the Co-op that has seen change over the years.

The Co-op’s radical reputation as a hotbed of leftist political activists didn’t come about until the late 1960s, according to Amelia G. H. Kaplan ’96-’97, who wrote her senior thesis on the history of the Co-op.

Still, radical elements were present from very early on. For instance, some of the more extremist members of Students for a Democratic Society took up residence in the Co-op, Robert C. Spencer ’64-’66 recalled.

Life in the Co-op settled into a smooth routine quickly after its founding. By the time Spencer moved in, in 1964, he said the warmly decorated house felt more like a home than the “hard, granite floors” of Claverly Hall, where he originally lived.

Spencer said that, during his era, many of the students were there for financial reasons. But residents from the 1970s and beyond have described the reduced room and board fee as more of a pleasant bonus than a primary motivation.

The house itself, apparently, has not changed much over the years. Alums said that it was cleaner and certain rooms and floors have been renovated, but the pair of Victorian-era houses brought back as many memories as ever.

“I don’t come to my class reunions, I only come to Co-op reunions,” alumnus Stiskin reminisced. “A lot of people who lived here said they wouldn’t have made it through Harvard without it.”

THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER

A few rain showers broke through, but the weather for the 50th reunion remained pleasant for the most part, if humid.

A white tent was pitched in the backyard and a barbecue roasted as alumni, their children, and current residents mingled and munched on—not surprisingly—an all-vegetarian buffet.

Nostalgic former residents were eager to share their Dudley memories. For some, their strongest recollections are of the Co-op’s most famous member, who was not a Harvard student at all but rather a local bum who invited himself over for Thanksgiving dinner in 1970 and didn’t leave until his death in 1985.

Damon Paine chain-smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, and every year, chose a few friends.

“If they played pinochle, they were cool. If they smoked cigarettes, they were cool,” Stiskin said.

Paine was eventually given a room of his own at 1705 Mass. Ave. His stay was not without a fight—the administration, Stiskin said, was not so fond of the unlikely tenant.

But the Co-op won the battle, and Paine’s impact can still be felt over 20 years after his death: former Co-oper Edward R. Barna ’70 named his son after Paine. And Joe Pesci’s character in With Honors, a 1994 movie directed by a Harvard College grad, was based on Paine.

‘DON’T SPIT IN THE SOUP’

Perhaps no practice better encapsulates the essence of the Co-op than the residents’ daily 6:30 p.m. dinner, which is communally prepared and served around one long, wooden table with mismatched chairs lining the sides.

Giant bins and buckets filled with split peas, bulgher wheat, and dried beans crowd the dining room walls. Bulk food is bought weekly, and the freezer boasts vegan treats like cartons of organic, non-dairy ice cream. The students bake their own bread daily.

A typical menu at dinner? Cauliflower soup, kale, tabouleh, and macaroni-and-cheese.

A sign over the entrance to the dining room reads, “Don’t spit in the soup, we’ve all got to eat.”

“It’s like a family. You don’t get to choose the people you live with. People are all willing to pitch in for each other,” said Anne-Marie Zapf-Belanger ’09-’10, a current resident.

Unlike the rigorous “punch” process that characterizes entrance to Harvard’s final clubs, Dudley requires only that interested residents come to dinner and place themselves on a waiting list before they can be admitted.

Co-opers share not only household chores and homemade dinners but also unusual traditions. In their small computer lab, photos of their annual “Lingerie Study Break” show Co-opers in Lamont Library wearing not much more than purple body paint and underwear.

There is also a “Naked Dinner” tradition, which evolved from a decades-old “Naked Brunch” (participation is voluntary).

TAKING A CHILL PILL

Richard C. Cozzens ’07-’08 said that there is “a sense of jumping to the next thing right away” at Harvard that Co-opers don’t share.

Agreeing, Eleanor H. Broh ’08 spoke of an “edge of panic” prominent in the mainstream Harvard culture.

Both could not remember a single Co-oper in recent memory who had gone into investment banking or consulting, as 39 percent of this year’s graduating seniors entering into the workforce are doing.

Cozzens gave a tour of his room, with walls covered in fun tack, posters, and drawings. On his desk was evidence of the Hoopes prize he recently won for his thesis on Arab rap music. He, like many other Co-opers, has taken time off during college: Cozzens traveled to Syria to study Arabic.

“There’s a whole other way of living in a River house. You can go days or weeks without leaving a two-block radius,” Cozzens said.

One of the most valuable parts of living in the Co-op, he added, is “perspective.”

—Staff writer Lingbo Li can be reached at lingboli@fas.harvard.edu.