Lowell House
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Lowell House is one of the twelve undergraduate residential houses at Harvard University for sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Built in 1930 as part of Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell's drive to provide housing for all Harvard students, it is nominally named for the President Lowell's family as a whole; but an ornately scripted ALL woven into the ironwork of the House's Holyoke Place gate hints at a more specific dedication. Prior to his tenure, most students were housed in privately run dormitories; these eventually became so competitively lavish that the area between Mt. Auburn Street and Massachusetts Avenue, just south of Harvard Yard, was once known as the Gold Coast.
Lowell House is home to a number of curious and longstanding traditions, including Thursday Teas at the Masters' Residence, a May Day Waltz at dawn on the John W. Weeks Bridge, the yearly Lowell House Opera held in the dining hall, and the annual playing of the 1812 Overture in the House courtyard during Arts First weekend.
During the latter, those not part of the official orchestral ensemble are encouraged to contribute on kazoos; in lieu of cannon, hydrogen-filled balloons are ignited by the House chemistry tutor; and until recently (see below) the performance would climax with the role originally scored by Tchaikovsky for authentic Muscovite carillon, being played (appropriately enough) by Lowell's authentic Muscovite carillon. Each spring, Lowell House also holds the Bacchanalia Formal that typically features a live swing band in the courtyard, a reception in the Junior Common Room, a DJ in the dining hall, and a promotional website with typographical errors. Many House events are organized by Lowell's "House Committee" of elected undergraduates.
Lowell does not have an acknowledged party suite as do some others, it does boast the coveted "Labyrinth," an eight-man room (nine if juniors choose to occupy it) with several exceptionally large singles and a sizeable common room.[1]
The current Masters are Diana L. Eck and Dorothy Austin, and Ryan Spoering is the Allston Burr Resident Dean. Lowell's sister college at Yale is Pierson College.
Notable alumni of Lowell House include John Berendt, Harry Blackmun, Michael Crichton, Christopher Damm, Matt Damon, Philip F. Gura, Walter Isaacson, Vanessa Lann, Tom Lehrer, Alan Jay Lerner, Robert Lowell, Nicholas Kristof, Anthony Lewis, Crown Princess Masako, Natalie Portman, Frank Rich, David Souter, John Updike, David Vitter, Chris Wallace, Andrew Weil, and Ned Lamont.
[edit] The Lowell House bells
For three-quarters of a century, the pride of Lowell House was its authentic Russian carillon — one of the few complete sets of pre-revolutionary Russian bells surviving anywhere — hanging in the House's signature belltower. Eighteen bells were bought in Russia around 1930 by Chicago industrialist Charles R. Crane — who reportedly paid merely their value as scrap — just as they were to be melted down by Soviet authorities. Crane donated them to Harvard just as plans for Lowell House were nearing completion.
Like those seen today on Dunster and Eliot Houses, Lowell's tower was originally meant to be a clock-tower — Lowell's in particular was designed after Philadelphia's Independence Hall. With word of Crane's gift, the planned tower was changed to the blue-capped belltower seen today. (One of Crane's eighteen bells did not harmonize with the others; it was hung in the Harvard Business School's Baker Library.)
The bells originally hung in Moscow's Danilov Monastery (now the seat of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church) and were installed with the help, at first, of musician Konstantin Konstantinovich Saradzhev, and later with the assistance of "a Russian émigré who ... claimed to have rung the Danilov bells before the Revolution."[2] They range in weight from 22 pounds (10 kg) to 26,700 pounds (12,100 kg, and known as "Mother Earth"). The bells are consecrated, and are of great significance to the Russian Orthodox Church, in the liturgy of which bells play an important role.
At Lowell, the bells were usually rung on Sundays by resident Klappermeisters. After the annual Harvard-Yale football game, Harvard's score would sometimes be proclaimed on the Mother Earth, with Yale's score tolled on the Bell of Pestilence, Famine, and Despair.
With the reopening of the Danilov Monastery, it was suggested that the bells be returned to their original home. At Harvard's June 2008 Commencement they sounded for the last time at Lowell House, after which the belltower was partially dismantled so that the bells could be withdrawn. In their place were hung replica bells obtained with the assistance of Russian industrialist Victor Vekselberg.[3]
The now-departed bells may still be heard on the Lowell House Virtual Bell Tower.
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Coordinates: 42°22′15″N 71°07′05″W / 42.37078°N 71.11818°W
