The Great Flood

Even with these countermeasures, the first years came, and came and came. There were just too many and not enough rooms. Many first years found themselves stranded in Cambridge without the housing they had applied for.

The Crimson reported that on the nights before registration, there were "extra Yard cops being stationed to take in hand bewildered freshman with no place to sleep."

The University housing office "doubled up" wherever it could and squeezed students into dorms at one and a half times their recommended capacity.

Nevertheless, more than 150 students spent their first month bivouacked in the Indoor Athletic Center (now the Malkin Athletic Center), sleeping on surplus Navy cots and making do with what the college provided: one cot, one chair and one ashtray.

One undergraduate anchored a yawl in the Charles as a temporary home.

The administration pushed through with the usual September rituals despite the barracks atmosphere around Harvard. Normal bureaucratic hindrances bloomed into paralyses with the huge number of students.

The line for registration at Memorial Hall stretched past the Littauer Center and students waited hours in the unseasonably hot weather to officially join the College.