Four days after President John F. Kennedy '40 was assassinated, The Crimson printed one of its most dubious headlines ever:
Million Mourners Pay Respects to Kennedy; Business School Site Selected for Library
Although the juxtaposition was unfortunate, the bit about the library site was indeed true. The paper reported that Kennedy and President Pusey had signed a formal agreement in August 1962 to build the library at the Business School, but that legal complications forced delay of the formal announcement.
There was much more, but in retrospect little of it makes sense. John Warnecke was to be the library's architect; the building was to be about two stories tall with only 50,000 square feet on each floor; and the library was to "blend in with the general Harvard architecture."
Airspace and the MTA
In the early sixties, the MBTA Yards were the prime proposed location for Harvard's next house--dubbed Tenth House. Immediately after Kennedy's assassination, Winthrop House students asked Harvard to name Tenth House after the late president, but University officials wanted to avoid conflict with the Kennedy Library and deferred on the choice of names, finally selecting Mather.
Kennedy Library plans were, of course, moved from the Business School to the MBTA Yards in 1965, but before that switch the subway yards were considered fair game for Harvard expansion.
In 1957 the University was studying ways to make undergraduates live in noisier rooms. The modest idea: build a House on airspace above the subway yards. At a 1960 hearing in the Massachusetts House of Representatives on a bill requiring the MBTA to sell the yards, Edward Reynolds '15, vice president for Administration, offered to buy the yards for market value plus $1 million.
Reynolds said if the transit authority does not move and the University is able to obtain the property (he meant the air), a "platform" might be constructed over the train-storage area and two new houses built atop the platform.
Reynolds pointed out that no definite plans had been made for the yard area, and that apartment buildings, a large garage, a bank, and offices might be constructed in addition to the Houses.
The Sycamore Saga
No one really wanted Cambridge to build an underpass beneath Boylston St. at the intersection of Memorial Drive. The Metropolitan District Commission came up with the idea; the Cambridge Planning Board, the University, and more than 1000 Harvard and Radcliffe students opposed it.
Student opposition came after it became apparent that the MDC plan would destroy the sycamore trees which line Mem Drive. In May 1964, 1000 students took to the streets, blocking traffic on Mem Drive for more than an hour while they shouted "Save the Sycamores."
Three underpasses--the others were at River St. and Western Ave.--were to be built. But opposition to the plan delayed the start of construction in March 1965, and the underpass, like a few other Harvard area construction projects, went under.
This delightful tale was written by Steven M. Luxenberg and Andrew P. Corty.