TECHNOLOGY CHAMBERS While it would be obviously unwise, even were it practicable, for the Institute to inaugurate a system of dormitories such as is necessary in a college located in a country town, it has long seemed desirable that some means should be found for bringing a number of the students together in a well-planned building where they might have good food, well-lighted and heated bedrooms, ample bathing facilities, and proper rooms for study. This need seems likely to be met, in a degree at least, by the proposed Technology Chambers which are immediately to be begun on what was known as the “Irvington Oval," bounded by Huntington Avenue, Irvington Street, an extension of St. Botolph Street, and the grounds of the Huntington Avenue Station of the Boston and Albany Railroad. This land, covering 16,000 square feet, has been purchased by the "Technology Chambers Trust," and a building, seven stories in height, and designed to accommodate 178 students, is to be built thereon after excellent plans made by Walter H. Kilham, '89. The building will front upon Huntington Avenue and there will be an entrance, as well as one or two stores, upon that side; but the "living frontage" of the building will be toward the south, on St. Botolph Street, most of the rooms looking out, from that side, on a central court-yard 80 feet wide, separated from the street by a high, ornamental grille with handsome stone posts and lanterns. This court-yard will be attractively laid out as a lawn with masses of shrubbery and flower-beds, separated by broad granolithic walks leading up, by broad flights of steps shaded by glass marquises, to the tenants' private entrances. In the basement, in addition to laundry, boiler rooms, etc., will be a large swimming tank, a gymnasium, and, possibly, hand-ball courts for the use of the young men occupying the chambers. The first floor will contain, in addition to a number of bedrooms and studies, a handsomely appointed diningroom, a billiard-room, and a hall for meetings and general social purposes. Each of the five stories above the first will be variously divided into suites of one, two, and three single bedrooms attached to or grouped about a study, so as to permit of a considerable variation in rental, and yet to allow of each student having at least a share in a comfortable and goodsized sitting-room. Three Three groups of bath-rooms, with tubs and showers, upon each corridor, will give ample bathing facilities; and the floors will be connected with the entrances, not only by wide, fire-proof stairways, but also by the latest improved electric elevators. The architect has so carefully arranged his plan that every room will have ample light and air; and the building, by means of practically a blank wall on the railroad side, will be almost completely shut off from the noise and smoke of the Boston and Albany Railroad. While this building will have no official connection with the Institute, it is proposed by President Pritchett to arrange for a semi-official supervision of the rooms, and especially of the restaurant, in order to make sure that the students shall secure good food. The exact arrangements for this supervision are not as yet are not as yet decided upon. The whole scheme has been, however, so carefully worked out as to leave little doubt that in this "Technology Chambers" there will be offered a place where students, at a cost very little, if any, greater than is now in |