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For many years there have been one or two MIT dorms that catered to the more alienated, creative, and/or radical students. Runaway has found an interesting (and sad) article on Senior House, which has filled this function for some years now.

Bexley Hall was an early leader in this respect. Conveniently for the present nanny administration, Bexley took care of itself...by falling apart structurally. Even in the '70s when I was there, settling on the underlying landfill was obvious with wavy lines of brick in the basement.

Consider a few samples of Bexley's legacy:

Around 1970, there were anti Vietnam war protests, the MIT Student Center was blockaded, tear gas was fired at nearby Bexley Hall...and the dorm residents threw the canisters back at the cops, some from the rooftop.

A little later,
https://www.americaninno.com/boston/mit-hacking-stories-history-of-mit-hacks/ [americaninno.com]

…But They Can Also Outsmart the FBI

In the early 1970s, MIT’s Bexley Hall became notorious for alleged LSD manufacturing. As one could imagine, the FBI wasn’t thrilled, so they called the president of MIT to alert him of an upcoming raid — a raid he shared with the Bexley Hall Housemaster. Authorities rolled up to a “Welcome FBI” sign, as well as a painted set of footprints that led them to nothing but a plate of milk and cookies.

When the agents did start tearing the Hall apart in outrage, they discovered a chest wrapped in chains and covered in padlocks. Too bad all that was inside were three marijuana seeds — “exactly one fewer than the minimum needed for a conviction.”

During my years in the mid-70s we elected a treasurer who was missing a finger from a childhood accident, his platform? "Less fingers in the till!"

https://www.quora.com/What-was-MITs-Bexley-Halls-culture-like [quora.com]

Bexley students liked to rebel against the system; they would try to thwart the administration whenever they could, and they would actively do the opposite whatever was expected of dorms. For instance, while most dorms would rush, Bexley would anti-rush; they would try to scare away students from living there. Some say it is so their current residents could get rooms with fewer roommates. Others say it so the only people who would join would be those who couldn't be scared, rather than people who just wanted to be close to campus.

Bexley looked more like a gang hideout than a college dorm. Whereas other dorms (East Campus, Random Hall, Senior Haus, Burton Connor, etc) would paint murals of beautiful pictures on their walls, Bexleys murals could be more aptly described as graffiti. Bexley also was known for having a lot of people who smoked and used drugs. Basically, Bexley was the opposite of what you would expect from an MIT dorm.

Socially, Bexley was very tight-knit, possibly because they seemed so anti-social to everyone else. I heard rumors that Bexley was full of communists whose dorm president was a cat. Bexley had a lot of people who liked being different.

A lot of students think that part of the reason Bexley was shut down was because the administration hated its culture, not just because of structural reasons.

I certainly remember the anti-rush -- was exposed to it the first time I visited as a freshling and then later used it to keep my nice double-with-kitchen&bath as my own single (shared with GF).

Another aspect of social life -- most residents had a grandmaster key that fit all the rooms in the building. The layout tended to isolate each of the four 4-story vertical entries...except that with master keys you could cut through the back/fire stairs and move horizontally on any floor.

In the last days before the building was condemned, a student video documented the building,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6m8se96yyM [youtube.com]
"We lived here, you didn't..." @ Bexley Hall, MIT

And, just to close, here are the house rules,

1. Bury your own dead.
2. No smoking in the elevators. (there are no elevators)
3. No more rules.

Further explanation on this page, http://www.boogles.com/local/Bexley/bexley-description.html [boogles.com]

Original Submission