Pre-Reunion Tours (Thursday, June 4)

May 20 update: See the NEW tours, including details on kayaking. All tours, if full, have waitlists.

Classmates have organized several tours for those arriving earlier on Thursday. Most have limited capacity. Would YOU like to organize a tour, adventure, or exploration for classmates? Let us know.

Sign up links and contact info are below. If you’re bringing a guest, please note that most of the forms require you to sign-up each person.

Contents

Please note: you must coordinate your own transportation to these tours.

To explore on your own, check the individual Harvard Museums for their hours, exhibits, and tours, or go to Harvard Visitor Center to register for University walking tours.

Descriptions & Sign-ups

Kayaking on the Charles River Basin, from Kendall Square (9:45 A.M.)

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What you will see:  Urban and scenic with views of the Boston skyline and MIT campus.

No prior kayaking experience required, but you must know how to swim. Single and double kayaks are available.

Schedule: Arrive by 9:45am, accessible via T (subway) to Kendall Square, walk to 15 Broad Canal Way.

By the time everyone pays, gets a boat, paddle and lifejacket (a.k.a., PFD), we should be on the water by 10:30am. I am expecting a 90 minute paddle, bringing us back by 12noon. Approximately. You should have no trouble making 1pm lunch or other appointments.

What to wear? Always good to assume you will get wet, so best to bring a change of clothing. Dress otherwise for the weather including a windbreaker as it can be windier on the water than on shore.

Cost: Each person pays individually at the rental office: rates are $35 for a single kayak and $51 ($25.50/person) for a double. We do not have a reservation (going commando walk-in style at 10am on weekday should be no problem).

Weather: Heavy winds or rain will cancel. I will send out a notice via email and/or text to everyone who has RSVPed.

More information: Email me: Mark Gluck. Paddle Boston (Charles River Canoe & Kayak). Rental FAQ.

Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University (12:15–3:15 P.M.)

Please join us for a no-host (optional) lunch followed by a Guided Walking Tour of the Harvard Arnold Arboretum in Boston. Private Guided Tours last approximately 60 minutes and showcase seasonal plant highlights as well as Arboretum history.

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  • 12:15-1:15 Lunch at West on Centre on Centre Street in Boston. Buffet is $30-40.
  • 1:15-1:30 Drive or carpool from lunch to the Arboretum
  • 1:30-2:30 Tour of the Arnold Arboretum led by Arboretum staff.
  • 2:30-3:15 Return to Harvard Square

Event Notes: Classmates have the OPTION to join us for lunch before the tour, at West on Centre (a short drive from the arboretum) or meet up with us after lunch inside the arboretum at the Hunnewell Visitor Center. Lunch is no host.

Classmates are responsible for their own transportation to and from. Once attendees are confirmed, Joe McDonough will try to organize carpools one week before the event. Please contact Joe at 650-245-7907 if you have a car and can drive.

Cost: The Arboretum will charge a small amount for our group guided tour. To defray this expense, a donation of $20 (give to Joe McDonough) is welcome. All funds in excess of the tour fee will be donated to the Arboretum.

Co-Sponsors:

  • Joe McDonough
  • David Blumberg
  • David Jacobi
  • Barbara Koh
  • Vivian Lee
  • Sam Perry
  • Bill Rose
  • Karen Scott

Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East (1:00 P.M.)

6 Divinity Avenue, Visitor Center Desk – First Floor.
Museum Hours: Sunday- Friday – 11am-4pm.

Accessible entrance and elevator at the East Entrance at the rear of
the building (follow the path to the right when standing facing the museum).
Organized by Noreen Hughes Verbrugge

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We will be guided by Adam Aja, curator of the museum. Our tour will feature the exhibition  Mediterranean Marketplaces: Connecting the Ancient World, which explores how the movement of goods, peoples, and ideas around the ancient Mediterranean transformed the lives and livelihoods of people at all levels of society, driving innovations that had lasting impacts—even on the modern world.

We’ll also see the Egypt Eternal exhibition, with augmented reality features, including many objects that have been scanned into digital 3D models. After the tour, take the time to explore the rest of the museum. 

For those what do not have time to go to the museum – check out the Director Highlights Tour video on the website of classmate Peter Der Manuelian, PhD, the Director of the HMANE. Peter (who cannot join us at reunion due to an academic conference) reveals highlights of the museum’s collection on view in its three floors of galleries, including the interactive casts of ancient royal Assyrian palaces and the Mediterranean Marketplaces and Egypt Eternal exhibitions. 

Harvard Square: Past, Present, Future (1:00–2:30 P.M.)

Meeting Place: In front of the Smith Center (if it is raining, we will gather in the lobby of the Smith Center and the tour will proceed but bring umbrellas or raincoats!)

Description: Harvard Square is as much a part of the Harvard undergraduate’s landscape as the Yard. On this leisurely walking tour we will explore its rich history, look at how things have changed over time, and attempt to answer the inevitable question: why is it always under construction?

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Tour Leaders:

  • Cara Seiderman, HR ’81 (University of CA, Berkeley, MCRP and MLA). Cara spent over three decades as Transportation Program Manager for the City of Cambridge and takes great pride in being the instigator of change on the city streets in hopes for a better future.
  • Charles Sullivan, MCP ’70 has been the Executive Director of the Cambridge Historic Commission since 1974 and takes great pride in working to ensure that Harvard Square doesn’t change too much and retains its historical essence.

Adams House Renovations (1:00–2:00 P.M.)

If you can’t make the Thursday tour, there’s a shorter early-Friday tour at 8:15 A.M.

Sign up (Thurs. 1:00–2:00 P.M.)
Sign up (Fri. 8:15–8:45 A.M.)

Join Adams House Administrator Matt Burke on a tour of the Adams House renovations, just completed this past fall. Matt will show us all that can be covered in an hour including the dining hall, library, new study spaces, former Bow and Arrow Press space, the Pool Theater, the FDR Suite, study and gathering spaces, etc.

If there is a space you might like to see, let us know as we gather and we’ll see if we can see it! Contact: Barbara Watson

Harvard Art Museums (2:30–3:20 P.M. & 3:30–4:20 P.M.)

Sign up (2:30 P.M.) — TOUR IS FULL: Join the waitlist
Sign up (3:30 P.M.) — TOUR IS FULL: Join the waitlist

Tours led by Mary Schneider Enriquez ’81, formerly Houghton Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Harvard Art Museums.  Mary will give a brief tour of the museum overall, focusing, in particular, on the Modern and Contemporary galleries. Time permitting she will touch upon other highlights of the collection, the pigment collection and the current exhibitions.

Houghton Library (2:30–3:20 P.M.)

Sign up — Tour is full. You’ll be added to the waitlist.

Join us for an introduction to Houghton Library, Harvard’s primary rare book and manuscript library. The tour includes visits to our exhibition spaces and display rooms dedicated to the English writer Samuel Johnson and his circle, Romantic poet John Keats, American poets Emily Dickinson and Amy Lowell, as well as the library of Harvard collector William King Richardson.

A history of the building and an overview of services available to library patrons will also be provided. Contact: Barb Shubinski

Harvard 1776: the Time-Travel Campus Tour (2:30–4:00 P.M.)

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Travel back in time with us to Harvard, the humble ‘college in a Yard’ at the outbreak of war with England. From the Old Burying Ground at what was the outskirts of town, to Commander Washington’s residence in The Yard, to the dormitories that suffered the damages of his troops, most of sestercentennial Harvard is evident to those who know where to look. We’ll talk about college life during the “Concordian Exile”, the ideological split between the young scholars and their teaching masters, and how Harvard nearly came to ruin during the years of the Revolution. 

Tour led by Michael Ruderman ’81. Departing from in front of the Smith Center.

Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America (3:00 P.M.)

Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Radcliffe Yard, 3 James Street, Cambridge Mass 02138
Organizer: Noreen Hughes Verbrugge and TBD

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Visit the recently updated Schlesinger Library and take a tour with an Education and Outreach staff member of the facilities. The tour will include one of the vaults!   Learn about the Library’s world renown collection of cookbooks, and the Black Oral History Archives and more. Visit the exhibition Cooking Up Change.

The Cooking for Change exhibition explores the history and cultural significance of community cookbooks drawn from the Schlesinger Library’s extensive collection, spanning the 19th to the 21st centuries. The collection, including more than 4,300 community cookbooks, showcases the efforts of women’s groups within a variety of organizations to raise funds for their religious, educational, and civic causes while also documenting the social and cultural history of their varied communities and culinary traditions. 

Featuring cookbooks from diverse geographic regions and racial and ethnic communities, this exhibition invites visitors to consider how foodways and community advocacy intersect. Archival materials from local organizations offer insights into the production and marketing of these fundraising tools, while volumes with handmade and artistic elements show the physical and creative work that went into making them. Heavily annotated and food-stained pages demonstrate how these well-loved cookbooks found a place in homes within these communities and beyond. Through recipes and reflections, Cooking Up Change celebrates the power of shared cooking traditions and the enduring legacy of women’s community building through the kitchen. 

If time permits, we can walk across Radcliffe Yard to Byerly Hall (the former admissions office) and see the exhibit:  Eve Fowler words doing as they want to do.  This exhibit builds upon Eve Fowler’s decades of research and practice at the intersection of language, poetry, and visual art. Drawing on the artist’s sustained engagement with feminist texts and the visual potential of language, this exhibition presents a series of new paintings alongside a zine-style artist book. Closing hour: 5 pm.