Uris Library and the McGraw Clock tower

This McGraw clock tower reappears throughout Ithaca literature. Characters check their watches by it, although few Ithacans do; the four faces often register slightly different times. In One Man's Meat, White remembers the night in November 1918 when he woke and heard the tower bells ringing out "The Star Spangled Banner" announcing the end of World War I.

The clock tower also appears at the opening and close of The Campus on the Hill, the Ithaca-based poem by W.D. Snodgrass:

"Up the reputable walks of old established trees,

They stalk, children of the nouveaux riches, chimes

Of the tall clock Tower drench their heads in blessing:

'I don't want to play at your house;

I don't like you any more.'"

Uris Library is where, in Nabokov's Pale Fire, the mysterious Gradus stalks Kinbote through the rare books collection. It also provides the scene for The Widening Stain, the mystery novel by W. Bolingbroke Johnson, a pseudonym of Morris Bishop.