David J. Schiffman ’89, a Cabot affiliate who spent the first semester of his sophomore year living at 29 Garden Street, recalled the disproportionate impact of the housing shortage on sophomores. “We were definitely the lowest on the totem pole,” Schiffman said. “It really was not a good way to get integrated into the house by being three blocks down in an apartment building.”
John C. Reece II ’89, another displaced Cabot sophomore, was disappointed by what he viewed as the unfulfilled promise of the Harvard housing system. “You have this Harvard rooming group mentality of a common room with the rooms off of it and all the social interaction is formed by that,” he said. “And then you get put into a regular apartment off a hall.”
Displaced Quad affiliates also described their temporary housing as uncomfortable.Schiffman remembered 29 Garden Street as a “smelly old place” where even in the winter “you couldn’t keep the heat on because it was just so hot.”
But Schiffman’s memories of his semester at 29 Garden Street are not all negative.That semester, Schiffman met John T. Schiavone ’89, his roommate at 29 Garden Street, who became one of Schiavone’s “best friends from college.”
NO ROOM FOR TRANSFERS
In June 1986, the College informed new transfer students that it could not guarantee them a spot in a residential House due to the housing shortage. All new transfer students would have to find housing either in Harvard-affiliated apartments or on their own.
At the time, one transfer student told The Crimson that he was so dismayed by Harvard’s transfer student housing policy that he almost went to Stanford instead.
But L.D. Wood-Hull ’88, a junior transfer student from Wheaton College, said that he chose to come to Harvard despite knowing that he would not live in one of the twelve residential houses. “I was sitting down with all my possibilities and options,” Wood-Hull recalled. “Coming to Harvard without being in one of the residential houses was the best option, so I was happy to have that choice.”
SPRING HOMECOMING
With the start of the second semester of the school year, the housing situation improved for some students who had been affected by the shortage. A more normal attrition rate that spring allowed some of the sophomores in Wigglesworth to move for the first time into Eliot and Winthrop. Conover recalled being “really excited” to finally move into Eliot House, which was nearer to the river and closer to her friends.
By January, displaced Cabot residents were also allowed to move back into their House after renovations of Cabot’s Eliot Hall were complete.
Reece described the experience of moving into Cabot House as a second-semester sophomore as analogous to “going to the Ritz-Carlton.”“Everything was perfect white, the floors were all redone,” he said. “It was amazing. We felt very spoiled.”
For Reece, after a semester of living among adults in an apartment building, being in Cabot meant that “suddenly you’re back among kids.”
Despite having missed a semester, Schiavone remembered that he and the other sophomores had no difficulty integrating into the House community when they moved into Cabot. “I didn’t feel like we were odd men out,” Schiavone said.
The housing outlook even began to look brighter for transfer students.In March, Harvard announced that it would subsidize rent for any students who wished to live in Harvard-affiliated apartments.
“Some students were really excited about the idea,” said then-Housing Officer Lisa Colvin Zengilowski. “Even though there was this challenge and this crunch in housing, it turned into a win-win situation that allowed us to think about how to better look at transfer students.”
Today, as Harvard anticipates another housing shuffle resulting from the upcoming House renewal project, Dingman said that the 1986-87 housing shortage provided administrators with important lessons about how to best manage a housing crunch.
Dingman said that administrators learned the importance of providing contiguous and high-quality space for displaced students, as well as a robust residential staff of tutors to help ensure community.Still, he admitted that temporary housing is “not the same as living in the House proper.”
—Staff writer Rebecca D. Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@college.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Amy L. Weiss-Meyer can be reached at aweissmeyer@college.harvard.edu.