--Passed a resolution asking the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to investigate the deaths of four squirrel monkeys from intense heat in laboratories last summer.

Gul Agha, who heads the Cambridge Committee for Responsible Research, said the measure was an attempt to "open places to public scrutiny."

--Received a downzoning petition from the East Harvard Square Neighborhood Association that would halt the University's plan to build a five-story hotel on the former site of the Quincy Square Gulf Station.

The petition calls for the Council to take the eastern end of Harvard Square out of the Square's special zoning overlay district, said Robert J. LaTremouille, the attorney who drafted the petition. The area would be rezoned to exclude commercial structures, including hotels, he said.

"We feel that [mid-Cambridge] is a largely residential area, with some office and retail space," said Mass. Ave. resident Terry Crystal. "The zoning that's in there presently does not protect that atmosphere."

"We don't want our neighborhood to become a shopping mall," she added.

LaTremouille said that under the proposed changes, Harvard could still use the Gulf station site for a noncommercial purpose, such as a library or office building.