It's scaffolding, white sheets, mid-winter moves and $60 to $70 million.

It's labor agreements, displaced first-years and sprinkler systems.

It's...

Nothing is perfect, including summer school registration at Harvard. And when things go awry, parents who have entrusted their high-school sons and daughters to Harvard sometimes get a bit steamed.

But, according to Christopher S. Queen, the summer school dean of students, the father of one summer school student was peeved for a reason that the summer school program had nothing to do with, inadvertently or purposefully.

Apparently, the father was unhappy because the Yard was under construction--so unhappy that he wanted to withdraw his child from the summer program.

"He wanted the postcard Harvard," says Queen. "Instead, he got the real Harvard."

Students, faculty and administrators would generally be surprised at the father's reaction. For them, over the past year, renovation in the Yard has become a part of life.

Most simply take the path around Matthews or swerve to avoid the scaffolding at Thayer. Some first-years have been thrown into 29 Garden St., far from the Yard, but close to their kitchens and elevator.

Despite the occasional grumbling, however, the renovation of the Yard has quickly become a fixture on the Harvard scene.

After all, the beautiful old buildings of the postcard Harvard that tourists ooh and aah at in the Yard crumble, age and become outdated in the real world.

Signs of Age

Renovation per se is hardly unknown to Harvard. With ten schools encompassing hundreds of buildings, some many decades old, it is nearly impossible to find a time when there isn't some sort of major overhauling of a Harvard edifice going on.

The Yard, however, remained relatively untouched for quite a while. Canaday, finished in 1974, was the last dorm built. Though the dorms were not exactly strangers to hammers and nails, a quarter of a century went by without a thorough overhaul of the dorms.

By the early 1990s, however, the Yard dormitories were beginning to show their ages--some of which were close to or more than two centuries. Even Canaday, the baby of the group, was plagued with a leaky roof and gusty drafts.