On the corner of tree-lined Walker and Shepard Streets, a stone's throw from the grassy Radcliffe quad, sit the buildings Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles refers to as the "least attractive" of all Harvard undergraduate housing.

With peeling paint and 1950s-style architecture, the buildings the buildings--with their entryways named for former Radcliffe President Wilbur K. Jordan--stick out among the more traditional homes of the tony Cambridge neighborhood.

When they were built, the Jordans were intended to be homes to Radcliffe girls who wanted to save money and learn some domestic skills.

"Pink icings, caramel sauces, hot coffee and tea sandwiches are meticulously prepared by potential Phi Beta Kappas and budding medieval historians," reads an article about activities in the Jordans from the Radcliffe News in 1961. Today, students focus more on their scholarship and less on their cupcakes and have little time for cooking and cleaning.

The University--which took possession of the buildings from Radcliffe with last year's merger--is well aware of the problems with the Jordans.

But due to Cambridge city politics, disagreement over the way the buildings can or should be used and the several other multimillion-dollar construction projects which teh University is already juggling, the fate of these ill-suited buildings remains up in the air.

The Rise and Fall of the Co-op

Built by Radcliffe in 1959, the Jordan buildings were intended to provide an alternative to Harvard's traditional House system--cooperative living space where students could live together and cook for themselves.

But interest in cooperative housing has been drying up, as privacy-seeking students covet singles and private spaces.

By 1985, the Jordans could no longer be filled through the co-op application process, and the College began to use them as overflow housing for the quad Houses.

"As interest in that kind of system evaporated over time, we have gradually been converting them to regular housing," says Associate Dean of Harvard College for Human Resources and the House System Thomas A. Dingman '67.

When Radcliffe officially owned the buildings, Harvard College was in a bind--any renovations to "quad properties" had to be approved by a recalcitrant Radcliffe.

But Harvard gained legal ownership of the quad buildings, including the Jordans, as part of last year's merger deal between the Harvard and Radcliffe. With ownership of the Jordans secured, Harvard now has greater freedom to determine their fate and no longer has to ask Radcliffe's permission to spend funds on renovating and improving Quad buildings.

Bursting at the Seams

And full ownership of the building couldn't have come at a better time.

With House space concerns already forcing some students into three of Harvard's overflow structures, the College needs all the room it can get to house undergraduates. "The Jordans are at the top of our list for facility improvement in Pforzheimer House," Pforzheimer Masters James J. and M. Suzanne McCarthy write in an e-mail message.