The tower was constructed between 1917 and 1921 as part of the Memorial Quadrangle donated to Yale by Anna M. Harkness in honor of her recently deceased son, Charles William Harkness, an 1883 Yale graduate. When the residential college system was inaugurated in 1933, the tower became part of Branford College. It was designed by James Gamble Rogers, a Yale College classmate of Anna Harkness's other son, Edward S. Harkness. James S. Hedden was the contractor's supervisor for the project and took many photographs of the construction's progress. The tower underwent renovations from September 2009 to May 2010 to repair its masonry and ornament.
Harkness Tower is 216 feet tall, one foot for each year since Yale's founding at the time it was built. From a square base, it rises in stages to a double stone crown on an octagonal base, and at the top are stone finials. From the street level to the roof, there are 284 steps. Midway to the top, four openwork copper clockfaces tell the hours. The bells of the carillon are behind the clockfaces, fixed to a frame made of steel I-beams. The playing console of the carillon is at the level of the balconies immediately below the clock faces. Lower levels of the tower house a water tank, two practice carillons, the old chimes playing console, office space for the Yale University Guild of Carillonneurs, and a memorial chapel.
Materials
The tower was built of separate stone blocks, and reinforced with steel in 1966 to handle the new bells in the carillon. Yale tour guides frequently mention the legend that the tower was the world's tallest free-standing stone structure until it required reinforcement after an eccentric architect or philanthropist ordered acid to be poured down the walls to make it look older. In reality, the Washington Monument was the country's tallest such structure long before Harkness Tower was built.
The witticism, attributed to various modernist architects, that had they to choose any place in New Haven to live s/he would select the Harkness Tower, for then they "would not have to look at it," is apparently apocryphal, derivative of a similar story told of Guy de Maupassant and the Eiffel Tower.
Carillon
The tower contains the Yale Memorial Carillon, a 54-bell carillon. It is a transposing instrument; the C bell sounds a concert B. Ten bells were installed in 1922 and 44 added in 1966. The instrument is played by members of a student-run group set up for the purpose, the Yale Guild of Carillonneurs, and selected guest carillonneurs. During the school year, the instrument is played twice per day: a half-hour session at 12:30 p.m. and a one-hour session at 5:30 p.m. In summer it is played only in the evening, plus a summer series of Friday concerts. Carillon play was suspended in 2009 and 2010 during the tower's renovation.
