MEMORANDUM

October 10, 1980

To: Files

From: E.C. Whitehead

At 4:00 p.m., Thursday, October 9th, Dr. Lewis Thomas,

Dr. David Baltimore and myself, met with Dr. Gray, President,
Dr. Provost and Dr. Eugene Brown, of the Department of
Biology at M.I.T.

The discussion first concerned institutional arrangements.
In principle, the M.I.T. people had no objection and in
fact, had precedents for free-standing institutes in their
organization. They have no problem with an independent
Board. They felt it would be desirable for MIT to have
representation on that Board and that this could be one

or two people. They were enthusiastic about the whole
notion of the type of Institute that we were proposing.

The sticker here is obviously space. There appears to be
no unoccupied land on the Campus that could serve as a
suitable site.

There is at present a program to replace some old and
somewhat dilapidated buildings with a Humanities Center.
This is a favorite project of Jerry Weisner's. The
project has been approved in principal by MIT but
unfortunately, sufficient funds for its execution are
not yet available. After the meeting, David told me
privately that he was under the impression that the
project would cost $22 million and only $4 million had
been raised so far. However, they still had another year
to go. The reason this is of significance is that the
site selected would be a prime site for the Institute.

There appeared to be two other possibilities, neither
one of which are 100% desirable.

There is land rather near the existing Cancer Center
which is presently occupied by three elderly and somewhat
dilapidated buildings that do not belong to MIT, both

on the campus. If we could acquire these buildings,

the site might be useable. For those readers who know

the MIT Campus, the Cancer Center and the Whittaker
School form an "L". The site would be the interior

of the "L". There are three problems with this site:
PAGE TWO

1. The cost and difficulty of acquisition from
the present occupants.

2. The city is building a subway which would be
directly under this site, which is one sense
could be desirable but from the standpoint
of noise and shaking, could be undesirable.

3. The University and the city government have
an agreement that when the University acquires
land which was formerly on the tax rolls, the
University continues to pay taxes at a decreasing
rate each year, down to no taxes. If we could
acquire a site on the Campus, there would be
no real estate tax implication but if we acquire
a site that is presently paying taxes, there
would be a tax liability.

The second possibility is a new development across Main Street,
facing the back of the Campus. However, here we have the
seemingly insurmountable difficulty of taxes. Simple arithmetic
tells one that if a building costs $30 million dolars and the
tax rate would be approximately 6% of market value (present
rates} we would impose a burden of $1.8 million a year, which
to me is much too much.

The other disadvantage that it is contiguous to rather than
part of the MIT Campus.

We discussed the MIT Administration perception of an independent
Institute on their Campus. Interestingly, they are more tense
about having an Institute near the active center of the Campus.
The further away from the active center it is the less tense
they were.

I proposed that as a "quid pro quo" for the site, we might

be willing to build additional space to house congenial MIT
scientists (i.e. members of the Biology Department) for let

us say 25%0f our building. This would have the advantage

for MIT of providing additional space and a tighter relationship
to our scientific group. The advantage to the Institute is
tighter linkage to the University. They seemed very responsive
to this idea.

They asked what sort of programs we are contemplating, which
we told them. They were curious about the past history of
the Institute which we clarified, etc. It seems absurd that
90% of our meeting was on site and 10% on the real guts

of the Institute, people and program.

They had had only five days to consider this matter and
admitted that the look as to the site possibilities had been
somewhat superficial. They promised to get their planning
officer to have a much harder look and hopefully, come up
with other site alternatives.
PAGE THREE

It was suggested during the meeting, almost facetiously,
that we could take the site of the four existing tennis
courts which are right in the best part of the Campus.
Provost Low, particularly, protested as there are at
present, a shortage of tennis courts on the Campus.
Afterwards, we discussed facetiously, that we could build
our building and replace the tennis courts on the roof.
In thinking about it, this is possibly not such a stupid
idea, as the loss to the Campus would be zero and the
gain in useable building space, would be enormous.

By copy of this memo, I am asking David to pursue this idea.

ECW/ml1t
DISTRIBUTION

Dr. D. Baltimore
Mr. Arthur Brill
Dr. J. Lederberg
S. Peerce, Esq.

Mr. M. Segal

Dr. L. Skeggs
Dr. H. Sokol

Dr. L. Thomas
Mr. J. Whitehead
Mr. P. Whitehead
Ms. S. Whitehead