Getting into Harvard

Its museums and libraries welcome all strangers to the Yard, to enclaves of art, books, bones, theater . . .

March 09, 2008|Patricia Harris and David Lyon, Globe Correspondents

CAMBRIDGE - We Cantabrigians often treat Harvard Yard as a shortcut to Harvard Square, barely registering the solemn buildings and towering trees of the university's inner sanctum. The late David McCord, perhaps Harvard's most enthusiastic alumnus (Class of '21), would have been appalled. "Other American colleges have campuses, but Harvard has always had and always will have her Yard of grass and trees and youth and old familiar ghosts," he wrote in 1948.

Even then McCord lamented the "swirl and jangle of traffic" in Harvard Square, preferring the tranquillity of academe. "Withdrawn from all the noise and sick hurry of the day," he noted, "the stranger may enter the Harvard Yard." The university is surprisingly open to "strangers," and not just Harvard Yard. Admission to Harvard museums, libraries, or collections is often free or relatively inexpensive.

The free tours led by Harvard undergraduates are billed as historical walking tours, and your guide will certainly explain that the college was founded in 1636 and named for benefactor John Harvard, who bequeathed his li brary and half his estate when he died in 1638. Harvard's statue is the school's prime photo op.

The campus stroll also provides a glimpse into the psyche of the university's young scholars. Despite fighting a cold, Shaan Hathiramani ('08) was surprisingly upbeat on a gray mid-February afternoon. "This marks the beginning of my senior spring, so I'm very happy," said the applied math major from Englewood Cliffs, N.J., who has already secured a job in finance.

"This is the nexus of Harvard, the lifeblood," he said, pointing into the Old Yard, where red-brick Massachusetts Hall, built in 1720, is the oldest surviving campus building. "Most buildings are freshman dorms; it's pretty cool that freshmen are put at the center of things," said Hathiramani. "JFK was in Weld; Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones were in Mower."

Though he's not a big fan of the 1973 Modernist-style Science Center, just outside Harvard Yard, Hathiramani remembers his freshman physics class there well. "My professor had a long beard and looked like he was out of 'Lord of the Rings,' " he said. "I later realized he was one of the foremost figures in the field. That pretty much describes your experience at Harvard."