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Development Threatens Bank St. Neighborhood

Some residents, including English professor andplaywright William Alfred, long for the days ofcorner drug stores and cheap groceries andrestaurants. The Athens St. resident recalls whenVie de France at 1100 Mass. Avenue replaced agrocery store, a Chinese laundry, and aninexpensive Japanese restaurant in one fell swoop.

"For fellas to take girls out on a date itcosts the earth now. It didn't then," says Alfred.As a graduate student in the late 40's, Alfredpaid $7 a week for a room in a boarding housewhere the Quincy House addition now stands.

Many people cite the mixture of people who livein the area as the key to the neighborhood'sappeal. Working-class people, professors,students, and senior citizens all reside in thesmall area of century-old, walk-up homes.

"It's everything Newton isn't," says TedSutton, who has been living on Bank St. for nearlyten years. Sutton says he enjoys the diversity ofpeople around him and the fact that many of hisneighbors were born in the homes in which they nowentertain their grandchildren.

Harvard's Expansion Mode?

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But while several developers are trying tobuild in the community and alter its appearance,it is Harvard that neighbors say they fear anddistrust the most. The neighborhood particularlyobjected to the school's 10 Mt. Auburn Streetproject because it was "too Harvard."

"It was more of the same," Phillip Dowds ofBank St. says. "More acquisition, more demolitionof what was here before, and more replacement withHarvard stuff."

"The people in this area will be buried likethey were near Peabody Terrace," says Athens St.resident Brigitte Dinsmore. Born in Ireland,Dinsmore came to the United States in 1964 and hasbeen living in Cambridge for the past 19 years.

Harvard officials admit that the constructionof Peabody Terrace--which was radically differentto the existing area architecture--may have been amistake. Harvard is now trying to work moreclosely with the community, one official says, butresidents are still distrustful of theUniversity's plans.

"There's a residue of bad feeling," says JohnShattuck, Harvard's Vice President for Governmentand Public Affairs.

That bad feeling was evident last summer whenthe Bank Street Neighborhood Association, afterbeing consulted about the 10 Mt. Auburn Streetproject and objecting to it, decided to break offcommunications with Harvard.

"At least Graham Gund is was a person you couldtalk to whereas Harvard Real Estate was a remotebureaucracy that couldn't be trusted," says Dowds,who is a member of the steering committee of theneighborhood association.

Residents fear that Harvard--which owns morethan $1.5 million worth of property in the areaand has destroyed more than 70 homes there in thelast 40 years--will begin several majorconstruction projects, particularly on the emptylot on De Wolfe Street and two vacant parking lotsof Grant Street. Harvard currently owns 48 percentof the land area and 36 percent of the housingunits in the small area bounded by Mt. Auburn,Athens, and Bank Streets and Peabody Terrace,according to some estimates.

"People have long expected that the whole areawill end up looking like Mather House," Dowdssays. "There's a lot talk about this question [ofHarvard's expansion]. And most of it is negative."Look Who's Moving In

A. Parking lot currently owned by St.Paul's Church across the street from Quincy House.Potential uses include a hotel, condominiums,student dormitories, or a mixed-incomeproject.

B. Future site of a small shoppingcomplex between Arrow and Mt. Auburn Streets to bedeveloped by Graham Gund Associates.

C. Affiliate housing project to bestarted this spring by Harvard at 8-10 Mt. AuburnSt. The University has owned the two-parcelproperty for 18 months, but has only recentlyreceived permission from the city to beginconstruction.

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