According to an article from the Cambridge Chronicle, published on October 2, 1897, “The Craigie is a dormitory for Harvard men, so designed as to meet the needs of those who desire comfortable quarters at a low price.” At that time, Chapman Arms was often called “The Craigie.”

The building was designed by Josephine Wright Chapman, one of the earliest woman architects in America, earning it a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1963, a serial killer known as the ‘Boston Strangler’ murdered his tenth victim in Chapman Arms, stabbing 23-year-old tenant Beverly Samans to death in her first-floor apartment.

Harvard officially acquired the building in 1967. Back then the building was loud, Allosso says, and the tenants kept their doors open. “It was a hippie building—it was a mess,” she says.

In 1985, Harvard evicted the Chapman’s tenants so that it could renovate and turn the structure into mixed-use housing, giving each tenant relocation assistance and a cash reward. The University bought the land on which Chapman Arms sits that same year and sold the building itself to Cambridge Housing Associates, namely senior partner Robert J. Kuehn Jr.

During the sale, Harvard stipulated that the building would rent 25 units at market rate and 25 units at a discounted rate for affordable housing tenants.

But the guarantee of affordable housing would not last forever. The sale contract only required that the owner offer affordable housing units until 2016.

And as that deadline approached, investors keen to make a profit off of the building prepared to pounce.

FIGHTING TO PRESERVE

Low-income housing at Chapman became threatened in the wake of a funeral.

On June 15, 2006, Kuehn died in his office on the first floor of Chapman Arms. Kuehn, who had been the Chapman’s steward for 20 years, bequeathed his share of the building to a pool of 30 investors.

In spring 2011—nearly five years after Kuehn’s death and five years before the affordable housing requirement would expire—the investors listed the property with a broker.

But investors did this without informing the residents, and this decision was found to be in violation of Massachusetts’ Chapter 40T, a law designed to help preserve affordable housing. The listing of the building was delayed, giving Cambridge the time needed to devise a plan that would ensure that Chapman would remain a mixed-income housing complex.

“Chapter 40T was instrumental in the preservation of Chapman,” Chris Cotter, Cambridge housing director says. “It allowed us...[the time] to put together a credible preservation plan with a credible offer.”

Allosso started holding meetings in Chapman Arms’ lobby late last spring. Allosso and eight other tenants attended a June Cambridge City Council meeting in the hope that the Councillors would come to their aid.