CultureNOW - Harvard Bridge: William Jackson and Peter Vanderwarker

Harvard Bridge

Engineer
William Jackson

Dates

Constructed, 1891

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Description

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
"It’s called the Harvard Bridge, even though it connects Boston with MIT, not Harvard. That’s because in 1890, when the bridge opened, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was in Boston. Its Cambridge site didn't exist: MIT's new campus would be built on mud dredged from the Charles River. The Harvard Bridge was the road to Harvard University then, and not much else.

The name should really be the Smoot Bridge. Oliver R. Smoot Jr. is now an executive in a trade association of business-equipment manufacturers in Washington, D.C. – not the most romantic of life’s missions. He lists his interests, in Who’s Who, as ‘alpine skiing and gardening.’ But that’s as if Clark Kent were to list ‘typing and telephoning.’

Smoot was brushed by the angel of immortality in October 1958. He was a pledge at MIT's Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. After a late-night party, a group of his future brothers – computationally inclined, as befits MIT students – decided to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge in Smoots. They placed Oliver on the pavement and rotated him end to end. The bridge measured 364.4 Smoots and one ear. The next day, the Lambda Chis painted the marks on the bridge in 10-Smoot intervals. They have been a legend ever since.

The older photo was made when the bridge was new. We’re looking along Massachusetts Avenue toward Boston. Horses trot beside an electric streetcar. The streetcars survived until the 1970s. By then – like an estimated 1,000 other state bridges in Massachusetts – the Harvard Bridge needed replacement. A new span was built on the original granite piers. The Smoot marks were re-created by the Lambda Chis, with the support of state officials.

It’s an article of myth at MIT that police have long relied on the marks as locational tools. A squad-car radio crackles – ‘Suspect spotted at Smoot 46!’ – and the forces of justice spring into action.

The replacement bridge also features a plaque in honor of Harry Houdini, the magician, who performed one of his famous escape tricks there on May 1, 1908."

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - The Harvard Bridge," Boston Globe, 1996

map not available at this time.

Location

Charles River
Massachusetts Avenue & Storrow Drive
Boston, MA 02115
United States

Nearby Items

Massachusetts Ave (MIT)		0.3 miles
Baker House		0.4 miles
MIT Chapel (Bldg. W15)		0.4 miles
Church Court		0.5 miles
Altarpiece for MIT Chapel		0.5 miles
Bell Tower for MIT Chapel		0.5 miles
Kresge Auditorium (Bldg. W16)		0.5 miles