And, while all building projects must be approved by the budget office, each school in Harvard's decentralized structure has its own facilities and maintenance structure and way of contracting labor, as does Harvard Real Estate and the central administration.

"The vast majority of the stuff we bid goes union because we can bid competitively," says Kristen S. Demong, president of Harvard Real Estate. "I think we want the flexibility of bidding with union and non-union firms to make sure we get quality balanced with savings."

Union members say the element of quality sometimes gets sacrificed as the University goes for lower prices, and that Harvard is making slow effort to create a unified labor hiring standard. "Is everybody basically playing their own game or is this an effort to move to a more centralized policy?" Ehrlich says. "It's disconcerting and confusing."

A Garden of Eden?

For the second consecutive year, more than 150 first years will find themselves living in the apartment complex at 29 Garden St., which also houses the Harvard Police Department.

Members of the class of 1996 who were exiled to the building on the other side of the Cambridge Common, closer to the Radcliffe Quad than the John Harvard statue, had mixed reactions. Many complained about The Walk (six minutes and 866 steps), while others raved about the spacious rooms, private kitchens and free "29 G" T-shirts provided by the Freshman Dean's Office. "Every Yard," the shirts said, "needs a Garden."

For last year's first-years, Garden Street social life turned out to be a wasteland. Senior Adviser W.C. Burriss Young '55 overreacted, some say, to complaints about party noise, and he shut down some festivities before they could even begin. Most socialized in the Yard, and some, when they could find a welcoming friend, began sleeping there.

There may be other hazards to the residents. On three different occasions, Harvard Real Estate discreetly removed asbestos from the building. But whether it's all been removed is unclear, and the building's long term residents--the police--are a bit worried. Two longtime employees in the small department have contracted cancer this year, and speculation is rampant about whether the building is the cause.

By the fall of 1995, all 16 dorms should be renovated, 29 Garden St. should be just an apartment building and Harvard should be done with its massive renovation project.

But some of the issues raised by the effort--labor relations, asbestos, the need for upkeep--will still be there then, and probably for several years to come as well. Sooner or later, Harvard will have to deal with these issues, much as it dealt with that of the Yard dorms.

And Harvard College will soon also have to confront another renovation project as massive as that of the Yard dorms, as the undergraduate houses, especially those along the Charles River, come due for repairs.

Such problems could become the hassles of the 21st century, or they could be resolved--much as the problem with the disgruntled summer school father was.

The summer school student, Queen says, did not share his father's reaction. In fact, Queen says, the student "fell in love" with the campus and gave his father a tour the next day while telling him about his courses.

"By Sunday morning, he came back to say that not only was he resigned to leaving his son, but he was convinced it was the right place to be," Queen says.