Along the way, the small band of tourists even stopped at City Hospital to meet the now-famous local health commissioner who made the Department of Defense halt the testing of deadly nerve gases in the city.

Most of the freshmen on the tour said they hadn't yet traveled much beyond the Square and jumped at the chance to familiarize themselves with a different part of Cambridge.

"I wanted to discover the place I'm going to live in for the next four years," said Marco K. Malisani of Turin, Italy. Malisani got an early introduction to one of the area's most colorful political figures, 70-year old City Councilor Alfred E. Vellucci, at the Dante Aligheri Italian cultural center in East Cambridge.

Vellucci--known throughout the city for his love of students and skirmishes with their institutions--gave the freshmen their first taste of town-gown tensions.

"Something happened after World War I--a whole lot of good programs disappeared which created a relationship between the city and the universities," the former three-term mayor said about the days when Cambridge high school graduates were admitted to MIT free of charge.

Eye-Opening

"The interesting thing about this tour is how little I knew about Cambridge," said Jessica L. Mark, a North Cambridge native who graduated last spring from nearby Rindge and Latin High School, who along with Duehay and the Public Service Program's William Gump '85-86, planned the day's itinerary.

"I always knew Cambridge was an academic community, but there's so much more," said Gary L Negbaum of Manhattan.

While he hailed the program as a success, Young said yesterday he wasn't so sure it would be offered again, explaining that "you can't get the mayor of Cambridge trotting around the streets with students every day