During the first two years of co-residence, it seems North House was most popular, followed by South House. Hogness denies men moved to the Quad to pick up women. "The pickup mentality reflects not being able to relate to women as people...distance is needed for this, not being bleary-eyed together, brushing your teeth," he says.

Feminism thrived at the Quad in the early '70s. At that time when Quad women organized the Women's Center. Joanne Tuller said, "Though many women were active in women's activities, weird things happen when women are in the minority." During these years, some River House male-to-female ratios were 8:1.

At that time in North House, Tuller said, "There was a feeling women weren't getting to know each other," so women organized an all-women's dinner. Though approved by the House Committee, the event provoked University-wide controversy. Tuller thinks the debate it provoked was a good thing. Occasional women's dining halls, with female House associates invited, women's collectives, as well as all-female halls in dorms, gained acceptance. It seemed to me the women's dining halls were an interesting chance to meet older women, who had gone through more of life and academia.

Corridor living encouraged a more informal and communal life than that found at the River Houses. Ellen Kellman '76, now pursuing a joint degree in public policy and law, says, "When people hang out with large groups in the halls, they do weird things." This self-mocking humor inspired such institutions as the North House Annual Christmas Matzoh Ball and the pre-exam Quad Howl.

Bill Poser '79 says "My freshman year, I felt a sense of belonging in North House. When I was a sophomore, I realized that it was nice to have people around who weren't departmentalized."

Until this year, when Dean Fox's housing plan took the freshmen away, Radcliffe had always housed all four classes together. Robert Sapolsky '78 calls this "the best freshman advising system around." Radcliffe's Senior Sister program, in which upperclasspeople welcomed and visited freshmen, continued until the Fox plan took effect this year.

A week before Christmas vacation in 1976, Dean Fox proposed to take freshmen away from the Quad. "Here we go again," was the reaction of North House resident Robert Sapolsky '78. "For three years the annual assault on the Quad was timed during vacation, reading period, or exams." In previous years, attempts to rescind the 1:1 ratio and to institute the "1-1-2 Plan" (freshmen in the Quad, sophomores in the Yard, and others at the River) met with widespread undergraduate resistance.

"In previous years the ends of University Hall were horrible, but last year the means were odious," Sapolsky says. Quad activists said Fox implied improvements such as an Observatory Hill athletic complex and a South House dining hall would not be built unless the Quad knuckled under to his plan.

"The Quad stalwarts and the North House co-masters fought a singular battle. We lost," Sapolsky says. "People at the Quad had a humane, supportive community; the Fox plan was the last straw in the University's attempt to destroy it. The Quad was everything Harvard feared: Radcliffe College, the vestiges of the '60s, and a community that wasn't and didn't want to be Harvard."

In my experience and that of many others, including those who have recently returned to the Quad from the River Houses, the Quad community and its alternative lifestyle still exist. Whether they will survive depends on the commitment of future Quad residents to these values.

Emmy Goldknopf '77-4 has lived at Currier and Adams Houses, and now lives at North House.