But Harvard Square residents never got the opportunity to see if the 23-story motel--a skyscraper by Cambridge standards--blended in well with the lowslung Square skyline.

A Coop de Grace

The Brattlewalk with colorful circles on the roadway never quite made it. Neither did the Palmer St. mall.

The Harvard Cooperative Society asked Cambridge in February 1965 to close Palmer St. and turn it into a pedestrian mall. Landscape architects drew a plan calling for two small plazas, an underground parking garage for 200-300 cars, and a path through the First Congregational Church's graveyard as a shortcut to the Square.

No doubt the church did not think much of people tip-toeing through the tomb stones, and the mall plan never got off the ground. Pedestrians still have to dodge cars, except on sidewalk sale Saturdays when they have to dodge people.

A Second-Story Job

WHRB's 1963 search for a new home almost ended when the radio station decided to add a second story to the one-story Masters' garage at Mill and Plympton Sts., next to Winthrop House.

The one-story addition almost became a two-story addition when Harvard Year-book Publications joined forces with WHRB. The two organizations received the endorsement of dean of the College Watson. "I'm willing to do anything I can to get the building up and both of them into it as soon as possible," Watson said on Oct. 4, 1963.

Both WHRB and the Yearbook said that the plans were tentative, pending the outcome of a fund drive to raise $100,000 for the new construction. Either the fund drive failed or someone disapproved, because both organizations found new homes far away from the Masters' garage.

X Marks the Spot

A small concrete pathway separates mammoth Littauer Center from the gargantuan Undergraduate Science Center. It would be difficult to drive a large truck between the giants--nevertheless Harvard wanted to build a $5 million International Affairs Center on that spot in 1965.

The money for the proposed high-rise building came in the form of a $12.5 million grant from the Ford Foundation. The grant set aside $2.5 million for construction of the new center. The other $10 million provided funds for research in the field of international affairs and for nine endowed professorships.

When he announced the grant, President Pusey said that construction would begin when the University had raised an additional $5 million--$2.5 million for construction costs and $2.5 million for maintenance.

The University evidently did raise the money, but decided to put the international affairs offices in Harvard's portion of the proposed Kennedy Library. Presumably that money still rests in some University vault, pending definite plans for the library complex.

Memorial Soup