An End to Schoolyard Bickering

Former Cambridge mayor Al Vellucci passed away two weeks ago, after a long life of public service. And while he was one of the most colorful local politicians to sit on the Cambridge City Council, Harvard administrators are ulikely to miss his stunts and criticisms of the University. Had Vellucci gotten his way we would be going to school in a drastically different place.

Consider, for example, Vellucci’s plans for the Yard: in 1964 he declared his intention to raze Straus, Lehman and Massachusetts Halls to ease traffic in the Square. Four years later, he proposed digging up the Yard to make way for an underground parking garage and bus depot. And as recently as 1988, Vellucci was still issuing public threats to former University President Derek C. Bok in The Crimson: “We will cut all their trees and all their landscape after confiscating their land by police force if necessary.”

But the belligerent old man didn’t reserve his fire for the official offices of the University; he went after everybody and everything Harvard. In one of his most cogent and brilliant political maneuvers, he managed to pass a resolution through the city council declaring the Harvard Lampoon castle a public urinal.

Despite his gimmicks—or maybe because of them—Vellucci became the spokesperson for a popular political perspective in Cambridge, and his antics reflect an anger on the part of residents towards Harvard. We are, admittedly, the most intolerable neighbors.

I refer not to the drunken rowdiness—what college town isn’t plagued by the late-night carousing of unruly lads and ladies?—but rather to the shameful conduct of the administration, and in particular, the Planning and Real Estate office. A brief review of Harvard’s attempts at expansion reveals an attidude towards local communities that is at best embarrassing and, at times, devious.

For obvious reasons, the construction of the eyesores known as Mather House and Peabody Terrace in the 1970s angered nearby residents. More recently, the secret acquisition of acres upon acres of Allston and the ensuing uproar when the purchases became public knowledge earned Harvard the distrust of locals. Former University President Neil L. Rudenstine once told The Boston Globe that he considered the poor handling of the University’s Allston properties to be the greatest regret of his presidency.

Town-gown relations hit a new low when current University President Lawrence H. Summers announced aggressive expansions plans at his richly traditional and mildly self-congratulatory inauguration last year. In response, Riverside killed Harvard’s plans for a modern art museum by the river, declaring “if you build it, we’re going to bomb it,” as one resident put it succinctly at a town council meeting.

But without Harvard, some will retort combatively, Cambridge would be an utterly unremarkable suburb of Boston rather than the garden spot it is today. Overall, Harvard is an asset for the community, so let the University do what it will with its own land, they will say.

This has traditionally been the University’s attitude and it must stop. Cambridge, too, must abandon its Velluccian tactics and hostile politics. Vellucci’s stunts were as unproductive as Harvard’s strong-arm tactics.

As more buildings rise across the river in Allston, Harvard must reconsider its tact. Bullying is not only obnoxious, but ineffective in securing the approval and cooperation of local town councils. Unlike students, who come and go as the years pass, the residents are here for good and we ought to treat them well. But the residents, too, must end their childish protest politics. It is time to end the schoolyard bickering and establish a tradition of cordial friendship between neighbors.

—David W. Rizk