Work on the razing of two wooden tenement houses in the block between De Wolfe and Plympton Streets is now under way, it was announced yesterday by A. L. Endicott '94, comptroller of the University. One of these houses is already nearly demolished and the wrecking crew yesterday began work on the other.

These buildings, with others abutting on Plympton Street below Mt. Auburn Street, have been owned by the University for a number of years. Before Soldier's Field was used to such an extent as today and before the Freshman dormitories were built, this region was one of the most unattractive in Cambridge. The destruction of these houses, both of cheap construction, marks one more step in the University's attempt in recent years to clean up the district, since the expansion of the College in that direction.

The possibility of moving the present Freshman library and other houses on Dunster Street, including the quarters of the naval science department, to the site of these old apartment houses, has been considered as one of the new House units is to be erected on Dunster Street. The idea has been rejected, however, as impractical because of the high cost of such an undertaking and it has been decided to go ahead with the original plan of wrecking these houses as well.

At some future date, it is the intention of the University to clean out the Plympton Street region altogether and to erect college buildings there, but this involves taking the land out of reach of the city tax assessors, and other problems that will make such a project impractical for many years.