Harkness Tower

Harkness Tower is a prominent Collegiate Gothic structure at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. 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 and the second son of Stephen V. Harkness, an early investor in the company that became Standard Oil. It was the first couronne ("crown") tower in English Perpendicular Gothic style built in the modern era. James Gamble Rogers, who designed the tower and many of Yale's "Collegiate Gothic" structures, said it was inspired by Boston Stump, the 272-foot (83 m) tower of the parish church of St Botolph in Boston, England. The 15th-century Boston Stump is the tallest parish church tower in England. Rogers also based some details on the 16th-century tower of St Giles church in Wrexham, Wales, where Elihu Yale is buried.