Rogers also based some details on the 16th-century tower of St Giles' Church in Wrexham, Wales, where Elihu Yale is buried.

Harkness Tower is 216 feet (66 m) tall, one foot for each year since Yale's founding at the time it was built.

Lower levels of the tower house a water tank (no longer used), two practice carillons, the old chimes playing console, office space for the Yale University Guild of Carillonneurs, and a memorial chapel.

Yale tour guides frequently mention the legend that the tower was the world's tallest free-standing stone structure until it required reinforcement after an eccentric architect or philanthropist ordered acid to be poured down the walls to make it look older.

In reality, the Washington Monument was the country's tallest such structure long before Harkness Tower was built.

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 gargoyles on the top level depict Yale's students at war and in study (a pen-wielding writer, a proficient athlete, a tea-drinking socialite, and a diligent scholar), along with masks of Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare.