Jazz venue's roof leaky

The Cat-in-the-Cream's leaky roof has led to cancelled performances

It was water, not curiosity, that killed the Cat last week after a leaky roof caused performances to be canceled.

The student-run Cat-in-the-Cream coffeehouse had to cancel a jazz performance by Conservatory students Saturday night due to a leaking roof.

Conservatory senior Sam Bergman, entertainment manager of the Cat, said, "There was supposed to be a jazz jam session following the Koko Taylor concert. The roof has been leaking for almost two months, but it was a fairly small leak. It was just last week that water began pouring in and this forced us to cancel Saturday night's shows." Bergman added that the roof has been temporarily fixed to enable performances to continue. He does not anticipate the need to cancel any more performances.

Some students were upset about the closure. "It's disappointing. It's a shame," Cat Treasurer junior Mark Trushkowsky said. "I personally like it when people from the school perform. It would have been great to have that in addition to the Koko Taylor show."

"It will take some time to get the roof permanently repaired," Bergman said. He added that he does not know how much repairs will cost.

Tom Reid, manager of Hales Bowling Lanes next door to the Cat, said the problem was that the building had a flat roof and this enabled water to work its way from the part of the roof above the lanes to the part above the Cat-in-the-Cream.

This, he said, resulted in very frequent leakages. Parts of the ceiling of the Cat-in-the-Cream have now been patched with grey duct tape to help control the leaking. The patches now cover a number of leaks that span across the ceiling.

Roofer Les Ives attributed the leakage to the onset of cold weather. "The roof contracts quite a bit during the winter and this causes it to crack," he said.

Ives said he has solved the problem of the leakage by filling the cracks with an absorbing material which swells as it gets wet. This material then moves to fill the cracks completely, forming a total seal. He said he used the same the method to close up cracks in the roof of Dascomb Hall just the day before.

Ives said this material stops leakage 99 percent of the time and he expects it to last through the winter. "As it gets wetter, it gets better," he said.