The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 7

The Boston Globe Saturday, December 12, 1970 Kennedy Library log jam rewarded with a finished product, and chances are it will be such a smashing success that memories of the hell involved in getting it built will gradually recede. Meanwhile. small. By the summer of 1965, a new site had been found. It is one of Cambridge's biggest eyesores, the 12-acre tract, where Boyls-ton street meets Memorial drive, which the MBTA uses to house steel tracks, trains, trackless trolleys, buses, and two huge repair sheds.

problem in 1965, and to ponder, like how much the library will cost to build. The library official has no figure to quote, and for a good reason. Without access to the Cambridge site, the architect, I. M. Pei of New York, has been unable to do the elemental soil and other tests that are essential to the development of final plans.

plex was an important part of his expansion plan for the university. What I hope is that this determination will see us through." Today, much of what will be in the complex already exists the bulk of the documents are available for researchers at the Federal Records Center in Waltham and the institute of politics as well as all the "Still, llie site is well worlh waiting for. Just think of what it offers that none of the other presidential libraries offer rapid transit nearby, an urban setting, with physical and conceptual links to a great university." hi Vr pJ 1 'S nuinniiwiiiimini ihww'iiii other Harvard departments, have been functioning realities for some time. What is missing is (1) a museum for the people, and (2) one big roof for everything in Cambridge. Someday, it is safe to assume, the seven million Americans who gave to the Kennedy Library will be SMMP at your nearest Qilchrist's These Suburban Stores PERT 'til 11 P.m.

Brockton at Westgate Mall Stoneham at Redstone Shopping Ctr. Saugus at New England Shopping Ctr. Quincy Municipal Parking Area Medford just off Medford Square By Thomas Oliphant Globe Staff Every so often, when visitors arrive in Boston, they look in the phone book under Kennedy Library, and dial one of two numbers, one in Boston the other in The information they re- quest is simple enough what hours of the day is the place open, is there an admission charge, kind of thing. It then becomes the embarrassing duty of the person on the other end of the line to explain that the library isn't open, yet. It couldn't be, because construction hasn't begun, and its final plans even haven't been completed yet.

If the visitor to Boston 'then asks when the ground-breaking is scheduled or when the library will be a reality, he's in for another shock, because no one really knows for sure. Seven years after. Dallas, President Kennedy's papers, the papers of his brief administration, and the mementos that will someday comprise a fabulous museum, still have no permanent home. And new delays now have been piled atop the mountain of delays that have plagued the project since 1963. The; way things stand now, ground-breaking is not likely to occur before the President's birthday (May 29) in 1972, with completion two, but probably three years after that Significantly, these dates are anything but sure, for nobody involved can do anything more at this juncture than make estimates.

The complex story of the Kennedy Library involves several institutions The Kennedy family, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), the Penn Central Transportations Co. and Harvard University, to name the most important ones. It also involves a woman, Lady Luck, who hasn't exactly shown library officials her best side. Seven years ago, all the subsequent delays could have been avoided if the Kennedy Library had been planned to function like 'very other presidential library a museum for tourists, plus a huge collection of documents for scholars. A month before he was assassinated, President Kennedy had been in Cambridge, and had personally approved as ideal for the library a small parcel of land next to the Harvard Business School on the Boston side of the Charles River.

After his death, however, the plans were quickly transformed from the typical to the unique. First ccme the Kennedy -Institute qf Politics, a place where courses, seminars, and research projects are used to bring students, professors, civil servants, and politicians together. Then came the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration, the name of which was changed to the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the new home of which is supposed to be the library complex. In addition, several other Harvard programs in fields like social studies and economics were selected for future residency there.

As a result, the little site next to the business school was judged far too Use your Master Charge Card today to save at Gilchrist's Warehouse 8-Hour Sale 9:30 a.m. -9 :30 p.m. Rte. 139 in Randolph Just off Rte. 24 Hew England Bankcard Association open 'til 9 P.M.

.1 ii hi ON FILE One section of warehouse (below) late President's papers are (above) holds collection of busts of stored while awaiting transfer to the JFK and members of his family, while proposed Kennedy Library. Boston store the core of the problem today, is how-to get the MBTA out of the storage and repair yards so the library and Harvard can move in. Two and three years ago, the problem was largely political, with the MBTA arrayed against residents of Dorchester, Milton, and Mattapan, who didn't want the noisy, ugly facility in their communities. Today, fortunately, that problem has been solved. About a year ago, the MBTA purchased the Penn Central's 23-acre yard facility in South Boston for $7 million.

At the time, Leo J. Cus-ick, then the MBTA's general manager, said it would take Penn Central until the end of this year to get out of South Boston and that it would take the MBTA until the end of next year to move in. 1 That was the timetable a year ago. Today, there's the latest estimate from Richard Dempsey, an MBTA official intimately involved with this monumental headache: Penn Central will now be out of. South Boston in the spring, "give or take a few weeks." Now here's the real shocker.

Dempsey, with a better feel for the logistical complexities, says it will take "two to three years" for the MBTA to move into South Boston from Cambridge. At this point, it's important to keep one important fact in mind the Penn Central is 'in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings in a Philadelphia Federal Court. Moreover, the railroad is on record as saying -that without government guarantee of loans of up to $500 million, it will completely run out of cash by March 31. It's hard to imagine that this might prevent Penn Central from completing its move from South Boston, especially since the $7 million sale price included relocation money. Still, you learn one lesson very quickly where the Kennedy Library is concerned and that is never to take anything for granted.

For library people, these have been trying times. "It's all been a blow to us, of course," said one key official who asked not to be quoted by name. "Still, the site is well worth waiting for. Just think of what it offers that none of the other presidential libraries offer rapid transit nearby, an urban setting, with physical and conceptual links to a great university." For now, though, there are more mundane matters Framingham Store Open Til 9:30 P.M. Just for the bricks and mortar for a museum, archive, and institute of politics, more than $10 million was raised from the public in the immediate aftermath of the President's assassination.

(More funds, of course, are available for endowment and other purposes.) The trouble is that no one can possibly know what inflation has done to the original guesses, and inflation has hit the construction business hardier than any other. "Pei has some definite ideas in his head," the library official said, "but it's looking more and more as if some of his grandiose ones will have to be scaled down. What we may eventually have to do is simply say, 'Here's $10 million or whatever. Now build the best complex you Another question of considerable importance is whether the library and Harvard people might be able to use at least a portion of the Cambridge site once the MBTA starts moving out in stages. MBTA and Kennedy people answer that one in the affirmative, especially regard to the west end of the site which is used for trackless trolleys that won't be going to the new South Boston facility.

This could make it possible for Pei's firm to do its tests and complete its plans, and perhaps even get some construction activity started. The fact remains, though, that nothing on a grand scale can begin until the MBTA is completely out, and that won't be until 1973 or 1974, according to Dempsey. As for Harvard, it is in many ways in more of a bind than the library people, with money, the biggest woe of all. Don K. Price, dean of the Kennedy School of Government who has also been in on the library planning from the beginning, knows only one thing for sure Namely that "several times as much money is in-, volved for Harvard's part of the complex." Because of the inflation factor, though, he has no firm idea of precisely how much money will be needed.

So far, not enough has been raised to guarantee that any Harvard unit from the government school to an international studies program, will be able to move into the library complex. "My number one hope," he said in a recent interview, "is the assurance (Harvard) President Nathan Pusey once gave Robert Kennedy that the com- BENNETT STREET YARDS 1 'ill 1 'MMitM ill One-Piece Snow Pants with attached Boots $5 Heavyweight reinforced vinyl pants with boot! attached keep children high and dry; let you rinse off mud quickly. Roomy, they slip easily on over outer garments. No more soggy socks, wet cuffs. Blue or red.

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