Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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stumble along and give some other people a share of your ptomaine personality, and 'tis too my brew, you din' order one, until a final and unequivocal glasses please, I have to have your glasses, and who has a nickle for the tip? jf we knew about nothing else in the Square before we registered, we knew about the Coop. The Society pelted us with brochures about patronage refunds, check endorsing, its stock of rich, creamy flannels, books, and furniture: and most of us, dazed by registration into the habit of signing and paying, passed a buck and a signature for our membership card with- out a tremble. All that we have to do to get to this store in which we own a buck interest is navigate Cambridge's attempt to make a circle out of a square, cleverly elude a couple of vehicles, match wits with a cop or two, wind carefully through a throng of people standing around a street clock for is it a monster penny weighing scalel, weave through a dangerous two way THIS ENT W mill' ..3v SOON X El: DFSIRPASSEMGQJ nlsymaoiznn t f ,, stream of pedestrians and through the Coop gates in under a marquee and into another mob of people. These people are just standing. Many of them have been standing there for- ever and will be standing there for another forever: maybe they are waiting to cross the street, maybe for the Irish Sweep-Stake returns, and maybe we don't care why anyway, but just wish they would break ranks a bit. And now we enter a swarm of shuffling, chattering, and gawping people that plays on our senses in rapid counter-point. If we could make our way through the mad churn of bodies to a purchase it would be an occasion for high triumph. Instead we stand involuntarily wedged into safety in a corner and ponder the wonders of this place. Upstairs is a mystery, each level a hive of bustling administrative bizziness, secretaries clicking their ways hither and yon and business men playing yours-of-the-twenty- first behind glass partitions, and all of them hiding their mysterious enterprises behind shifty half-smiles. Downstairs, one student re- cently discovered a small mound of pre-mixed putty being offered for sale: another student found a pretty girl hidden under a pile of Persian rugs, but she wasn't for sale. There are light bulbs, baby carriages, ironing boards, steel edges for skis, snow, and all manner of strange things offered. All that we need is the physical stamina of a sculler and the strength of a Sherman tank to get to these items. That a store continues to exist against these highly improbable odds, the street, the swarm- ing people and the people who are just stand- ing, gives the Coop a sort of inspirational value. Last year it pushed unconcernedly into the red to the tune of twenty-five thousand dollars according to the financial report read at this fall's meeting of the members. Still it declared its usual ten percent dividend. The store is owned by various members of the University Corporation and faculty, by alumni, and by us dollar-a-year men, the latter group being the only one that receives recompense for its investment. However it isn't the patronage

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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?

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refund, the brochures, the merchandise, or the mass ownership of the Coop that we will con- tinue to notice, and later will remember, but the utter madness of the place itself. arvard Square reflects the cosmopolitan. almost bohemian features of the community's personality. A theatre specializing in classic dramas, the invention of some late graduates: Esoteric music stores, in close harmony with the Harvard ear: heavy-weight academic and non-academic bookstores: florists: jewelers: typists: a bevy of garages: the U. T. with its weekly review day: some Red Sox rooting barber shops: two bookies, one hanging out in a local cleansing establishment, and the other booking with one hand and barbering with the other. These round out the Square's personality in full complement to that of the College. The Square's repertoire ranges the gamut of possible and nearly impossible tastes in mer- chandise and services with brave abandon. We can dress in grey flannels or in turbin and toga, can buy all accessories, and wear them with no fear of being out of place in this arsenal of individualism. We can choose, be- cause this Square offers us a motley from which to choose. Choosing for ourselves we consider a right, but, unamazingly enough, that right exists only when we have an assortment from which to choose. Each new foot of store front flaunts some different stench, color, and noise catering to the different noses, eyes, and ears of this community. But this much of a muchness is but the tails side of the coin of which the head is the College. ur class has enough variation in people to do justice to a Persian tapestry, if they made tapestries out of people'. It boasts representa- tives from many nations as well as from the great majority of the forty-eight states. It was derived from sundry backgrounds of education and experience. Vastly improbably variations of interests and personalities display them- selves in a mammoth Official Announcement of the Courses of Instruction, in the myriad, non-academic functions of the College, and in ' The Un-McCormick affairs committee would be most alarmed by any motion to make tapestries out of people, and would assuredly not allow it.--Ed. note.