Summer Residents Lament 9-Day Loss of MAC During Renovations

James D. Holliday ’27 walked into Hemenway Gymnasium on Monday, ready for a workout. Then he walked right back out.

“I just did not even bother,” Holliday said, referring to the number of people he found at the gym waiting to use the equipment. “I went back to my apartment and did a calisthenics thing.”

The Malkin Athletic Center, Harvard’s flagship recreational gymnasium, closed Monday for nine days of renovations that include “new recreational lockers, interior painting, floor maintenance, and some equipment updates,” according to a Harvard spokesperson.

The closure of the five-floor MAC has placed additional strain on the University’s other recreational fitness facilities, including Hemenway Gymnasium — located on the Harvard Law School campus — as well as Blodgett Pool and the Murr Fitness Center, which are located across the Charles River.

Though the closure will last less than two weeks during the summer, some residents said it has disrupted their routines and produced prohibitive crowding at alternative locations, particularly Hemenway. At 128,000 square feet, the MAC is almost five times Hemenway’s size.

Carlos G. Luz ’26, a summer proctor, said he has rescheduled his typical workouts to the mornings to avoid the mid-day and evening crowd since Monday.

“If you try to get a bench in Hemenway, it’s at least a 10-minute wait,” Luz said.

Some affiliates also lamented the loss of access to the MAC’s 25-yard lap pool.

Harvard Summer School Student Luke Zhu said he typically swims in the MAC pool at the end of every workout, but has had to switch to running at Hemenway.

Dotan Greenvald, an affiliate of Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies, said he started going to Blodgett Pool with his toddler. However, Greenvald said that compared to the MAC’s pool, Blodgett is “a little bit too cold” for his son.

“The pool there is warmer and he’s familiar with the space,” Greenvald said about the MAC’s pool. “It’s a comfortable environment for us to be swimming.”

He added that, though he feels the renovations to the MAC are necessary, he wished he had been notified about them.

“I wish, though, that I wouldn’t find out about it as I was going to the pool,” Greenvald said. “They should have done a better job communicating, even telling people coming in and out ‘Hey,’ or put in a big sign.”

The MAC’s closure also comes during a heatwave in Cambridge, where temperatures are expected to soar above 90 degrees throughout much of the nine-day closure.

Anya L. Ruzicka, a summer proctor who regularly uses the MAC, said the lack of a pool, along with Hemenway’s distance from her summer housing in Leverett Towers, has made going to the gym more inconvenient.

“Walking in the heat just to get to the gym is not very effective,” she said, adding that “not having a pool is really not super fun.”

But William M. Snyder ’78 noted that the renovations were well timed, as fewer people are at Harvard to use the gyms in the summer.

“The participation is so much lower that, if there was an increase from the MAC, it would still be below what it is on an average day during the fall or spring,” Snyder said.

Micheal T. Torto ’25, who is living in Harvard housing on DeWolfe Street, said he used the longer trip to Hemenway as “some extra cardio.”

“The MAC is always crowded,” Torto said. “I might actually change my location, take the extra hike.”

—Alma T. Barak and Ben Ali H. Brown contributed reporting.

—Staff writer Elyse C. Goncalves can be reached at elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @e1ysegoncalves or on Threads @elyse.goncalves.