The Advocate has taken the initiative to propose several other changes that the University is not requiring. Members hope to replace the wooden floor of the sanctum and hire an electrician to alter the building’s circuits to allow enough power to support computers, which was not a concern when the outlets were originally installed.
McLoughlin says that, with the College’s cooperation, he expects both of these changes to occur in the near future.
In order to finance these operations, Begley says that the magazine will hold a fundraiser in the fall to raise money for the Advocate’s endowment, which is currently in the six figures, though Advocate affiliates refuse to disclose the actual number.
Atlas says though the renovations have not been an “adversarial issue,” the Advocate deserves more respect from the administration.
“The Advocate has a historic role in the history of the University; it has been a very significant literary presence, not only to the University but also to the Anglo-American literary tradition, and the Advocate house, itself, is part of that tradition,” Atlas says.
Advocate President Andrews B. Little ’05 said that “I appreciate [McLoughlin’s] help” with the building but declined to comment further.
Current Advocate Publisher Rebecca L. James ’06, and Business Manager Scott M. Coulter ’06 declined comment for this article.
THEY PAVED PARADISE
The Harvard Advocate has published from 21 South St. since it completed the construction of the Georgian wood-framed building on May 1, 1956, after leasing the property from the University.
From the beginning there were problems associated with the planning and funding of the venture. The building cost $45,000 to build and the capital campaigns designed to raise the money to fund the construction fell $15,000 short. The Advocate was forced to take out loans to complete the structure, which boasted a garden for poetry readings and a bar to serve spirits on the second floor.
That garden was later paved to create a parking lot, with leased spaces which provide significant revenues for the organization.
A series of five-year plans were drawn up by Advocate leaders prior to the move to the current building in order to raise money from alumni to repay the organization’s debts.
The Advocate said at the time that the difficulty in raising money was due to the esoteric nature of the publication.
“News-mongering and cartooning are far more lucrative pursuits than the creative art that is literature,” Samuel H. Ordway ’21, then chair of the Advocate board of trustees, told The Crimson in 1956 after the Advocate failed to raise the money to fund the construction of its new building.
Ordway’s statement about “news-mongering” and “cartooning” refers to The Crimson and the Lampoon, respectively, which began publishing after the Advocate.
