The Harbor Towers' Towering Contradictions

Engaging in bouts of rebound coitus—or doing anything even remotely vigorous—near or against those windows required more courage and fortitude than one might expect, even in Puritan Boston: The lower-grade models the developers insisted be used, coupled with the leaky vents below them and the untreated concrete around them, soon revealed themselves to be highly problematic. Terry Lyman, who has lived in Tower I since 1973 and whose grandfather Theodore Lyman was one of the original Brahmins, says he used to have "rain and snowstorms inside on windy days…. It used to blow so hard that spray would blow 10 or 15 feet across my room. This is with the windows closed!"

In 1985, four years after the rental buildings were first converted to condos, Hurricane Gloria roared in and blew out 70 of the towers' windows. The trustees representing Tower I—which, by virtue of being closer to the water, has more moneyed residents—called for all of the complex's 1,716 windows to be replaced. The Tower II board wanted to junk merely the most dysfunctional ones. With the two sides at an impasse, the trustees moved to try to at least stop the indoor rainstorms by sealing up the vents. This meant the units no longer had proper exhaust systems—which turned out to not matter much, since the spaces between the windows and the deteriorating concrete walls were still wide enough to allow air (and some inclement weather) to flow in from outside.

With the broader question of what to do about the windows still unresolved as the recession of the early 1990s took hold, things started getting ugly. In 1992, the results of a special board election for both buildings' trustees had to be thrown out because of voting irregularities. By the following year, the sides were hurling invective and anonymous missives at each other, circulating fliers late at night, and enduring agonizingly awkward rides with their foes on the towers' notoriously slow elevators. For the next election, the trustees had to enlist the services of an independent vote-counter to make sure ballot boxes weren't being stuffed. Finally, George Macomber of Macomber Construction, a Tower I resident, brought the factions together, brokering a deal to replace all the windows—and also finally seal the crumbling concrete around them—at a cost of $9 million, or roughly $15,000 per unit.

There was just one problem, though: Because the vents had been sealed earlier, the new, leakproof windows created negative air pressure in the units. Vents in the kitchen and bathroom could push stale air out, but there was no mechanism in the individual units to bring fresh air in. Ever since, the towers' interiors have been low-pressure zones where odors and secondhand smoke migrate easily. Dare to open a window, and it creates a jetlike roar.

It so happens that the protracted fracas over the windows was also key to the formation of Frank Pompei as the "change agent," as he calls himself. He says the board's proposed wholesale replacement of the current 1960s HVAC systems will not address this long-standing ventilation problem (the V in HVAC). He also says that even if his tests prove repairs are necessary, they don't have to happen all at once; they can instead be done over the course of 20 years, lessening the financial blow to the owners and allowing a plan to be implemented that also addresses the ventilation issue. "I'd just as soon back away from all this stuff," Pompei says, "because I have other things to do with my time. But the reason I'm involved at this level is that I happen to know a lot about the subject, and I can't sit on my hands, as a neighbor."

The question is, do his neighbors want his help? In September, Pompei submitted a petition signed by 40 percent of his fellow owners calling for three tests to diagnose the seriousness of the HVAC problem: two to gauge the soundness of the pipes and measure leakage, and one to test the capacity of the fan coils, which pump in air from the current system. But then he and his slate of insurgent board candidates got drubbed in the December 6 election, garnering less than a third of the vote, which suggested the tide was turning against him within the building.

Outside it, however, things started looking a little better when the state appeals court ruled in his favor on December 28, saying he could perform his tests as long as he didn't interfere with the scheduling of the project, set to begin in May. The trustees, meanwhile, were pushing ahead. After the election, they circulated a booklet explaining how the coming construction would proceed, and, as insurance, included a "Project Rule 10," which threatens fines of up to $30,000 a day for anyone who fails to provide workers with immediate access to their unit. While Pompei declares, via e-mail, that "our efforts continue," even some who share his point of view seem too battle-weary to do anything but go along with the renovations. "I think people are so fed up with the whole mess that they just want to get it over with," says Terry Lyman, who's among those who've vowed to keep fighting. Tower II resident Maryann Hoskins, a Realtor and former secretary to Mayor Kevin White, says, "Frank Pompei is a wonderful guy and very credentialed—and, by the way, I think he's right—but it's too late. We just have to get on with it."