Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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ml TwenfY'0 e' Na furallY State of the Union: As USUHI sixe month, Phillips carries a large stock of new books. The Coop handles nothing but. Groliers and the Mandrake are not bathed in the frantic confusion that is so distinctive of the other second hand book stores. They stand aloof from the text book competition and cater only to the browser and buyer interested in books as books. Selling their heavy literature by the pound or by the page, by the name or by the age, all these houses of learning stand with their mows open, watching and awaiting the yearly procession of the classes. 8 ut we can't live solely on the pure food of learning, even if we would. We need clothes, food, entertainment, and sometimes, its been whispered, a drink or six. Our warm hearted Square would not have us go craving, and so, for a stipend, services are rendered by each friendly yard of store-front. August, Bolters, Chipp, the Coop, the Crim- son Men's Shop, Haig, Keezer, Kent, Morse, Press, and Sills elbow each other courteously for hanging room in our closets. Their ties advertise themselves in the Yard, and their white bucks and cordovans prat proudly of themselves on the Cambridge sidewalks. They would keep us from the Boston clothiers, and are successful. Pete has strangled many of us with a skinney and mottled strand of tie without moving from his Dunster street lair. We are Collegiate and would let the world know. The clothiers know. j t has been noted by astute Cambridge observers that the Union plagued stomach occasionally rebels. To minister to this angry organ, a cordon of food venders have estab- lished themselves in the Square. For the two to seven a. m. shift the Bick stands alone in impressive ignobility. In spite of an insidious and as yet unproved rumor that another all- night outfit lurks just around the next corner, the Bick is host to our early morning search for provender, especially during the recent hour exam press. After a cram session, a poker game, or a late bout with phosphorescent bev-

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And we will drink when we like, listen to music and draw when we like, study when we like, sleep when we like, and it's none of your damned business, thank you. Most of us are still sniffing the neighborhood, back doors and front. 0 ur curiosity made us easy catches for the merchants at first. The vendeurs for high class cleansing and pressing joints caught us with our pens out after Registration. We don't want just anybody fooling around with our pants and shirts, but then somebody has to keep the creases going the right way. Sign and be brave. It won't hurt much. Besides, Benny wants to be your friend, a regular Iohnny I. Anthony and Polonius rolled into one. Hardly had we run this gauntlet than the get-rich-quick-on-the-discounts boys were fan- ning our weary brows with coupon books, shiny, deluxe membership cards and an I-love- you line of chatter. Spend enough, grab off enough bargains, and we would most assuredly be rich on these millions of saved pennies. This would seem to involve some rather subtle economic theory, but then who are we to go around spitting in the faces of our benefactors. Who of us could work up even a good slobber for that matter, after the withering ordeal of Registration. So, we have made money al- ready, and our anemic wallets are some sort of complicated proof of it. Luckily, the oafish grin of the high-pressure salseman is not the typical expression around Harvard Square. Across that traffic jam called Mass Avenue, around the corner from the Kiosk melee, there are some refined and relaxed per- sonalities called here Bill, there the Greek, and around the corner the tome or 1e tailleur. 7116 Square spate of book stores generates lofty atmosphere and low-pressure salesman- ship. The atmosphere can be smelled or weighed or felt or seen. It is veritably atmos- phere: it resists fumigation and the onslaught of the Procters, the Gambles, and the Lever 5 Lu,- 1 brothers. We have stalked the cavernous laby- rinths of these book stores recently, and will re-arrange the anciet dust on their tomes many times again in the next four years. The Harvard Law Book Exchange is the un- disputed heavy-weight champion of the book stores. Schoenhof's, on Mass Avenue, has a fund of foreign books and special editions, banned and unbanned, read and unread, secreted in the confusion of its dusty shelves. The Harvard Book Store boasts an unsurpassed collection of Hymarx, the College Outline Series and other scholarly contributions to the world of knowledge. The Phillips Book Store, just down the street, merchandises on a differ- ent level than these. Where the latter deal with a bulk of second hand bargains and serve our vain attempts to make September an inexpen- 'wmv ' ' f 1v-A--.r

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ef'-'19es, the night usually leads to the Bick and its clientele of cabbies, drunks, and other assorted Cantabridgians, and its staff of sleepy- eyed waiters. The eggs aren't as fluffy as the myth on the menu would have us believe, but there is only small doubt that they were laid by chickens. A trayful tastes just like what it is: quick, cheap grub. The Bick's early morning rubric: a couple of three a. m. hot, sweet rolls and buns fresh out of the bakery, chased by a tired cup of coffee. During the day the Bick is squeezed out of the running by a web of restaurants and coffee stands. Parlaying delicatessen specialties and sandwich makings are: a soup, soda, and sand- Wich hangout near the corner of Plympton and Mass avenue, commonly called the Greek's ltheY CUIIY decks of Bicycles alsoli Harry's newly refurbished Arcade Spa on Bow street. Commonly called the Greek's and carrying especially soft toilet paper: a magazine and fquit stand near the Coop, commonly called the Greek's: a delicatessen on the corner of Boyl- ston and Mt. Auburn, commonly called the Greek's: George's Cottage Grill on Linden street, stabling pin ball machines and home of the famous English Muffin Special, called, unamazingly enough, George's: Mike's Club on Mt. Auburn for sodas: the Wursthaus on Boylston street for the hot pastrami sandwich: Swani's on Boylston street for the midnight to two a. m. snack: Hazen's7 Albiani's: the Waldorf: and ad nauseum. Many of these places have culinary special- ties: some are just short order joints. But all lend their tastes and smells to the unique and specialized, the never-to-be-forgotten atmos- phere of Harvard Square and Cambridge. Whisps of that atmosphere also blow in from the Hub, from the Pizzarias, the Chinese res- taurants, Haymarket Square and Canal street. the mid-town hotels, and off the tortuous Bean- town streets themselves. Be it from Boston or the Square, that pungent atmosphere pervades the year. S mack in the middle of the Square's mer- chant community, planted like an airplane hanger on enough acreage for a football field, is Iames Cronin's establishment. We heard about it on arrival, and most of us were in it within a matter of hours. Iames himself to the contrary, this unique emporium is no intimate Morey's, no typical college beer dispenser, but a brew factory machining out beer, ale, and a few lonely shots into a bottomless Crim- son belly, and there are few of us who haven't dropped some dimes at Iim's. Cronin's: Noise, and a sticky table, and your girl playing do-you-know-so-and-so with every arrival, and a raucous chug-a-lug competition, and your roommates waxing vociferous and inarticulate concerning Rousseau and the Gen- eral Will, and all of us talking like scrambles of Don Juan, Iago, Nietche, and Iim Thorpe with a sprinkling of Philip Oppenheim, and your girl getting lovelier with each passing gulp, and what does she see in that meat- head, and hey, meat-head, why don't you H- lf?