Inspiring Moment

Photograph by Jim Harrison

Memorial Hall has a new spire. On August 24 a jumbo crane at the north side of the hall hoisted four pieces of plywood-clad structural steel and lowered them into place on the stump of the tower. In sweltering heat and late-summer humidity, four more pieces went up next day and were fitted to the first. The high-tech system employed to identify the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle--constructed off site in Dracut, Massachusetts--involved spray-painting the letters A, B, C, or D on a corner of each of them. All dimensions were good, all connections fine, the work right on schedule.

On August 26 at 10:10 a.m. up went the crowning glory: the crown, so called, of steel supporting a copper-clad roof deck that measures 17 by 22 feet. On top of the roof is an encircling copper-clad balustrade eight feet high. On each corner are copper weathervanes extending 20 feet above the roof deck, their flags perpetually unfurled. The crown floated up in perhaps five minutes, looking feather-light although it weighs 7,000 pounds. The crane operator rotated it slowly, workers within the superstructure of the tower reached up and guided it by hand just so, and it came to rest--soundlessly, to those watching from below--like an ornament on top of a wedding cake.

"Those were three days of glamour," says project manager Elizabeth Randall. "They will be followed by a few months of slow, methodical work. We began the scaffolding of the tower in September and put the sandstone-and-brick pinnacles on each corner. We'll put the copper dormers on soon. Then the slate work starts and slowly moves up the building. Various copper finials will be placed as we go. We hope to be complete, with scaffolding down, at the end of December."

The cost of the project is $4 million, of which about $2.5 million was given to Harvard specifically to rebuild the tower. Two $1-million gifts came from Katherine Bogdanovich Loker, who early in the University Campaign funded the transformation of Memorial Hall's basement into Loker Commons.

The previous spire of Memorial Hall was destroyed by fire in 1956, while it was being repaired. The presumption was that the fire was caused by a workman's unattended blowtorch. The University for decades declined to rebuild the tower (see "Restored," March-April, page 63).

Katherine Bogdanovich Loker at the topping-off ceremony. Photograph by Tony Loretti

"Why the University thought it was appropriate to leave such a memorial in its truncated state--a memorial to Harvardians who died fighting for the Union in the most traumatic war our nation has ever engaged in--I never could understand," says John B. Fox Jr. '59, secretary of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and former dean of Harvard College. "I thought it was sacrilege. My family contributed to the building's construction, and members of my family are memorialized in it."

Fox may have been the only person present to watch the crown go up on August 26 who also saw the tower burn. He was a sophomore at the time of the conflagration and an admirer of the building. He didn't realize until the day of the fire that others could feel differently. "My parents' house in Arlington was on a hill, and I looked out a window and saw the tower engulfed in fire," he recalls. "Being young, I leapt into a car and drove--recklessly, I'm sure--into Cambridge. When I arrived, the firemen were still playing their hoses on the lower reaches of the building while the fire blazed above. I joined a group of watchers that happened to include the president, Nathan Pusey, whom I knew. I had gone to school with his son and the president and my father were Harvard classmates. 'Hello, John,' said the president, 'isn't it a pity that it didn't start at the bottom?'"

Fox rejoices in Memorial Hall's regained look of soaring slenderness, and he is not alone. "Having the tower back is wonderful," he says. "In a few more weeks, it's going to look spectacular."

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