When you look at downtown buildings in small towns across America you will frequently find the name of the businessperson who built them inscribed under the cornice. Oftentimes the business fails after a few years, but the name etched in stone persists for decades. Toponymic narcissism is the psychological term for the compulsion to plaster your name on objects, buildings, or projects. My family's surname was emblazoned on buildings and products. Creatively, when I started my first store, I called it Mick's Bike Shop. Sather Tower and Sather Gate are the two most iconic structures on the UC Berkeley Campus. Sather Gate is on Sather Road. If you turn off Sather Road onto Campanile Way you will find the most amazing clock tower, Sather Tower, the second tallest freestanding clock and bell tower in the world. They are named for Peder Sather and his wife Jane Sather respectively.
Sather Gate
Sather Tower
Inspired by Saint Mark's Campanile in Venice, the clock tower soars 307-feet above the Campanile Esplanade and 54 London Plane trees. It is a beautiful setting. The reinforced concrete foundation begins 18 feet underground. The I-beam frame contains 500 tons of steel encased in concrete. They omitted cross bracing on every other floor to allow the tower to wiggle during earthquakes. Over the years it has wiggled enough for bits and pieces of granite and marble to break off and fall. Plantings surround the base and a steel canopy have been added at the entrance for safety. Tower repairs have also been made. When the tower opened in March 1916, visitors could ride the elevator to the top then climb 38 more steps to the observation deck for a 360-degree view of the Bay Area and the Golden Gate. It is spectacular. Thousands of people showed up to take advantage of the view and pay the 10-cent entry fee. Entry was free for those with a campus ID. The cost remained 10 cents for nearly 65 years. Money isn't worth what it used to be. Admission is now $6 for adults and $5 for seniors. Students and faculty of UC Berkeley are still admitted free.
May 14, 1914
On the backside of the tower, you will find a bust of Abraham Lincoln atop a tall granite pedestal. This is a smaller bronze version of a much larger marble bust of Lincoln by Gutzon Borglum. The marble bust resided in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda for decades. Borglum, famous for carving Mount Rushmore, considered the marble bust as one of his greatest accomplishments. The marble bust and the smaller bronze version were commissioned and paid for by Eugene I. Meyer, a UC Berkeley alum. Born in 1875, he was the son of the German-born president of the powerhouse banking firm Lazard Frères. By his 40th birthday he was worth $40 million. He became a power broker in Washington and Chairman of the Federal Reserve during the Hoover administration—unfortunate timing. Some blame him for the severity of the Great Depression. He later purchased the Washington Post at a bargain basement price of $825,000 during a bankruptcy auction. His daughter, Katherine Graham, famously ran the paper after her husband's passing. Nothing on the Berkeley campus is named for Meyer. An elementary school and a foundation on the East Coast were both named for Eugene I. Meyer.
UC Berkeley has the only full-time university carillonist in the United States. Routinely the 61 bells ring out in song at the hands of the carillonist in a glassed-off room within the tower's observation deck. You can watch. One of the massive bells in the carillon was cast with a bas-relief of bears by the famed Japanese American artist Ruth Asawa. A crater on Mercury was named for Asawa as was a school in San Francisco. The carillon is really a lovely experience.
Peder Sather was a Norwegian fisherman immigrant who moved to New York City in 1832. He worked his way into the confidence of the banking firm of Drexel & Co to get a substantial loan to start a bank in San Francisco in 1850, just as the gold rush was revving up. Eventually, his firm became the Bank of California, which was deeply involved with mining. It was a rags-to-riches story. He became one of California's richest men during the Gilded Age. Though he had little education he became very involved in founding the Berkeley campus. Much of his fortune went to establishing public works. The Sather Gate was built after his death and Jane Sather died before the Sather Tower was completed. Toponymic narcissism, when applied with taste and sparingly, can add personality and historical context to the environment we use on a daily basis. It is fun to know the story behind our places.
Take a walk with Birkenstock.
