Claire Laporte

  •
    81 Oxford Street Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138 - Agassiz-Harvard
    A large rat ran into a hole located right near the right-hand side of the foundation (as you face the building).
  • 12 Martin Street Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138 - Neighborhood 9
    I saw a rat running from 12 Martin Street to the back of Changsho restaurant. The rat didn't go into the restaurant but instead ran immediately to the back of the restaurant building.
  • Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA - Mid-Cambridge

    Let me add my voice to the others who think that it is precisely the business of city government to intercede with Harvard to stop blocking passage to our neighborhoods to suit its convenience. Here is the email I sent to every member of the City Council, and to some community relations department at Harvard, with no response whatever from any of them:

    I live right by the Wendell/Gorham intersection. My direct way to and from the subway as I commute each day lies through Harvard Yard. Yet each evening as I walk home, I am blocked from the most direct route by Securitas guards. This forces me onto an unpleasant, noisy, and narrow brick sidewalk that skirts the northwest corner of the Yard and is, as a result of the exclusion of the community from the Yard, jammed with bicycles and other pedestrians.

    Harvard should stop this exclusion of the community from its spaces. Surely there is some less obnoxious way to accomplish whatever its objectives are. At the moment, it feels like just another form of corrosive elitism. I say this as one who has benefited enormously from access to elite institutions. When I was at Harvard, though, it did not feel quite so insular.

    I look forward to hearing that you have halted this particular form of rudeness to your neighbors.

  • 50 Oxford Street Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA - Agassiz-Harvard

    This additional request is to add to this one submitted earlier today: 11245053

    This area is owned by Harvard. For some reason, Harvard has allowed it to be completely overgrown by weeds. Some of those weeds produce extremely sticky burrs that have caused great pain to my dog when she has brushed against them and they have become embedded in her fur. I don't understand why Harvard is growing a giant weed garden just outside its particle accelerator building, but it is an extremely rude imposition on the neighborhood.