The tower was constructed as part of the Memorial Quadrangle donated to Yale by Anna M. Harkness in honor of her son. It was designed by James Gamble Rogers and inspired by the Gothic architecture of Saint Botolph's Tower in Boston, England and a tower at Elihu Yale's burial site, Saint Giles in Wrexham, Wales, and was, when built, the only couronne tower constructed in the modern era.
It is 216 feet tall, with a square base and an octagonal crown. Its decorative elements were sculpted by Lee Lawrie (1877-1963).
The lowest level of sculpture depicts Yales Eight Worthies, namely Elihu Yale, Jonathan Edwards, Nathan Hale, Noah Webster, James Fenimore Cooper, John C. Calhoun, Samuel F. B. Morse, and Eli Whitney.
Four copper clockfaces tell the hours midway to the top of the tower.
The second level of sculpture are Phidias, Homer, Aristotle, and Euclid.
The next level of sculpture consists of allegorical figures depicting Medicine, Business, Law, the Church, Courage and Effort, War and Peace, Generosity and Order, Justice and Truth, Life and Progress, and Death and Freedom.
The top level depicts Yales students at war and in study along with masks of Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare.
The witticism, usually attributed to a famous architect, that had he "to choose any place in New Haven to live" he would select the Harkness Tower, for then he "would not have to look at it", is apparently apocryphal.