Harvard Union

Harvard Union is a brick Neo-Georgian building at the corner of Quincy and Harvard Streets in Cambridge, built in 1900 as a dining facility and club house for Harvard students. It remains in use as a dining facility. Designed by McKim, Mead & White, it was the firm's first major building on the Harvard campus and echoes the earlier Johnston Gate of 1890 in its effort to fit among eighteenth century neighbors. Limestone quoins and escutcheons tie the design more closely to English Georgian models than to American Colonial ones. Its imposing scale makes good use of a small, difficult site, marking the campus edge along Harvard Street while respecting the smaller buildings across Quincy Street. The Varsity Club addition of 1911, by Thomas Mott Shaw, added to that intimacy. A $150,000 gift from Henry Lee Higginson paid for the building, meant as a gathering place for students who could not afford a private club and as a memorial to Harvard volunteers who died in the Spanish-American War. Its interiors include sculpture, painting and carved heraldic paneling.