A main Cambridge water line ruptured into 29 Garden Street over the weekend, leaking into the Harvard police station and leaving residents of the first-year dorm without water for about eight hours yesterday.

Water was shut off at 29G at about 11:30 a.m. so that city employees could work to repair the pipe. It was not turned on again until about 7:30 p.m. residents said.

29G residents were not given any advance notice that the water would be turned off. Signs placed throughout the building yesterday said the water would be turned off "indefinitely."

"They didn't give us any information," proctor Timothy W. Wheaton said.

Associate Dean W. C. Burriss Young '55 said the Freshman Dean's Office wasprepared to pay for four to five gallons ofbottled water per first-year proctor group had thewater not been turned on last night.

"We were not going to let them go withoutdrinking water," Young said. He said he hadalready made arrangements with Harvard RealEstate, which owns the building, to take a truckto stop & Shop to pick up water.

When the water first came on at 29G last nightit was brown, students said. As o 9:30 p.m. thewater was clear but water pressure was still low.

The water supply at the police station was notshut off yesterday. But over the weekend, the mainbreak left "a little water on the floor" of thestation, said one of the station's dispatchers,who would not give his name.

Residents expressed anger last night, claimingthat 29G seems to be chronically plagued withproblems. This is the second time this academicyear that water has been shut off in the dorm.

"It's bad enough that we're away from the Yardand away from everything Harvard means," David E.Mann '97 said