The Battle That Almost Ended the University of Washington

[TexasTowelie]

When President Henry Suzzallo tried to realize his grand vision for the university, he provoked the ignorant philistinism of his rival, Governor Roland Hartley. Here’s the story of their momentous showdown.

It was the first day of fall quarter, 1964, at the University of Washington. A nervous freshman, I met several high school friends at the flagpole overlooking what was then a grassy quadrangle west of the Suzzallo Library. After some strained badinage and heartfelt wishes of good luck, we went our separate ways—they to their first classes and I on a private expedition to the vast Gothic edifice. The great stone staircases within the library led me to the second floor and the low, padded doors of the Graduate Reading Room. I opened one and stepped out onto the cork floor, aware of great space, an almost palpable silence, and the sweet smell of warm dust.

High above was the room’s ogival vault, with ceiling work studded with gilded rosettes. My gaze fell softly down the tall traceries of the windows, down the dependent lanterns to the acorns and oak leaves crowning bookshelves and the immense oak slabs of lamp-lit desks. If others were there that morning, I was unaware of them, wrapped in my private vision and stilled by all that magnificence, richly affirming all of my hopes and dreams.

The grandeur was what its builders intended, as did the man who ordered its building, Henry Suzzallo. To his critics it was wasted space, but Suzzallo conceived it as a temple of learning whose scale would manifest the spirit and ideals of a university of a thousand years. It remains the grandest building on campus, but it was only part of the statement Suzzallo intended. East of his cathedral he planned an immense 310-foot bell tower, to proclaim the dominion of his institution throughout the commonwealth.

Suzzallo’s proud tower was never built. His tenure as president of the University of Washington marked its transition from a glorified frontier college to a cosmopolitan university, but it was a move that went tragically awry. If the reading room is a vision realized in stone, the missing tower is symbolic of a dream that failed.

Read more: http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/the-battle-that-almost-ended-the-university-of-washington/

[Warpy]

1. Large, ornate reading rooms are wonderful places

People tend to lower their voices in such spaces, automatically behaving in such a way as to avoid disturbing other readers. The Boston Public Library still has such a room, I believe, in the old section. I do hope it hasn't been crammed with computer terminals, it was so wonderful a space as it was.

The tower would have been superfluous, a waste of money and stone, and a monument to ego with no discernible other purpose. Good for them for avoiding building it.