City Council Moves to Speed Sale Of Twelve-Acre Bennett St. Yards

The City Council yesterday moved to prod the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) into disposing of the Bennett St. subway yards. The yards' 12 acres could become the site of the Kennedy Memorial Library or the College's Tenth House.

The Council authorized a special committee to meet with MBTA officials and ask the agency to sell the yards and extend rapid transit beyond Harvard Square into other parts of Cambridge.

Last spring, legislation abolished the old Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) and replaced it with the MBTA. The MBTA will extend rapid transit to some 64 metropolitan communities not included in the MTA system.

Officials of the MTA had indicated that they wanted to sell the Bennett St. yards and move its facilities elsewhere. In the spring of 1963, the University, along with private realtors, actually put in bids for the land. The sale collapsed, however, when the MTA was prevented from moving its repair shop to a site in Dorchester.

City Councillor Daniel J. Hayes, Jr., head of the committee that will meet with the MBTA, said yesterday that he thought the new agency would also want to dispose of the yards.

The University has always wanted the yards for the Tenth House. It has also been reported that the Kennedy family prefers the yards to a site adjacent to the Business School for the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library.

Early this fall, President Pusey said that the University would defer to the wishes of the Kennedy family. The city Council indicated last spring that it too would accept the library on the Bennett St. site.

The Kennedy family, however, is still publicly committed to the Business School site.

In another development yesterday, Cambridge city employees won themselves a salary increase of 10 per cent. The highest pay scale of regular patrolmen and firemen was increase slightly more than 10 per cent to keep Cambridge abreast of increases in Boston.

The pay raises are likely to raise the city's property tax five or six dollars above the present rate of $72.60.