Lowell House
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- For the publisher, see Lowell House (publisher).
Lowell House is one of the twelve undergraduate residential houses at Harvard University for sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Named for the prominent Lowell family, it was built in 1930 as part of Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell's drive to provide housing for all Harvard students. Prior to his tenure, most students were housed in privately run dormitories; these 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 Weeks Footbridge, 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, students who do not play orchestral instruments are encouraged to contribute on kazoos, and in lieu of cannons, the House chemistry tutor explodes hydrogen gas-filled balloons.
Lowell House's Sister College at Yale is Pierson College.
The current Masters of Lowell House are Diana L. Eck and Dorothy Austin. The Allston Burr Senior Tutor is Ryan Spoering. The Assistant Senior Tutors are June Mee Kim, Nico Slate, Tina Warinner, and Josh Goldman. The Co-Chairs of the Lowell House Committee are Laura Brent and Karan Lodha.
Notable Lowell alumni include John Berendt, Harry Blackmun, Michael Crichton, Christopher Damm, Matt Damon, Walter Isaacson, 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 bells
One of the more unusual features of Lowell House is the presence of a set of Russian bells in a tower above the House, one of only five complete sets of pre-revolutionary Russian bells left in the world. The set was bought around 1930 by Chicago industrialist Charles R. Crane in order to save the bells from melting by the Communists. When Lowell House was built, Crane gave the set of 18 bells as a gift (only 17 are in the House today; the 18th was thought to be too close in tone to one of the others, and it now hangs in the tower of Harvard Business School's Baker Library). The bells, originally from the Danilov Monastery in Moscow, the seat of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, range in weight from 22 pounds (10 kg) to 26,700 pounds (12,100 kg) (the largest bell is known as "Mother Earth"). The bells are consecrated, and are of great significance to the Russian Orthodox Church, where bells are regularly rung as part of the liturgy. At Harvard, the bells are rung every Sunday from 1:00 to 1:15 pm, and on certain special occasions, by an interested group of Lowell residents known as the Klappermeisters. The Bells had been rung for generations of students, for instance, following the Harvard-Yale football game, with Harvard's score rung on the "Bell of Mother Earth" and Yale's rung on the "Bell of Pestilence, Famine, and Despair." Visitors are welcome. They can also be heard on the Lowell House Virtual Bell Tower.
With the revival of Christianity in Russia and the reopening of the Danilov Monastery, a request has been made for the return of the bells to Moscow. Although the bells' legal ownership is not disputed, Lowell House and the Danilov Monastery have been involved in negotiations for the past few years. A transfer (with replacement Russian bells to be cast for Harvard) is being planned for the summer of 2008, and the ongoing negotiations have brought about a new and friendly relationship between the House and the Monastery (with exchange trips taking place in December 2003, May 2004, May 2006, August 2006 and February 2007). The Russian Industrialist, Victor Vekselberg, has pledged to pay for the repatriation of the bells through his foundation, The Link of Times. The foundation is represented in the United States by Edward Mermelstein.
