The new first-year dining area in Memorial Hall, scheduled to open in late January, will likely be more crowded than the Freshman Union and may have less space for first-year activities, Dean of Freshmen Elizabeth S. Nathans said in an interview yesterday.

The new Annenberg Hall, occupying the first floor of Alumni Hall in Memorial Hall, will replace the Union as the first-year dining hall beginning with the second semester. The new Loker Commons student center will be on the floor below Annenberg Hall.

Annenberg Hall will have a seating capacity of 617 and will initially be limited to first-years, Nathans said.

"It's smaller than the current space [in the Union]," Nathans said. "We couldn't even accommodate freshmen spilling out of Sanders [Theatre] and Science Center B at this point."

The serving area in Annenberg Hall will also be smaller than the Union's, Nathans said, although the new facility will use a "scramble system" of serving, which is intended to make lines move more quickly.

The seating capacity of the Union is unofficially estimated to be between 700 and 750 seats.

The issue of crowding will likely be considered by the executive and advisory committees on Memorial Hall, whose members were announced yesterday by Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68.

Additional Debate

The Union has been running long lines this year at peak lunch and dinner hours, Nathans said, and that problem will probably be exacerbated in Annenberg Hall because first-years will pour out of large lecture classes directly into the hall.

Since interhouse dining will not initially be allowed, the Harvard Shuttle Service may run more shuttles at peak hours to allow upperclass students to return quickly to their houses to eat, Assistant Dean of Students Sarah E. Flatley said yesterday.

Nathans also said the new hall will not have a room like the Union's rotunda.

"There's nothing like that in the new place," Nathans said. "It's one huge hall."

Although there are meeting rooms in Loker Commons, "the strength of the rotunda is that you can just walk by" and see what's going on, Nathans said. In addition, the Freshman Dean's Office will no longer be able to use the large parlor B room on the Union's second floor.

Flatley said that the Memorial Hall complex will be a boon for the dean of students office because they will have more meeting rooms at their disposal.

But Nathans said it will be impossible to hold large first-year events such as the concentration fair in the new complex because of a lack of space.