The Story of the Great Sun Ball (or Gnomon)

Catherine Clary McLean

22 November 2006

Hallowell, Maine, home of the Clary family,just SW of Augusta.← Hallowell

Columbia University ↑in New York City

It is 1914 and the Class of 1885 presents the Sun Ball to Columbia University

Delivery of the Sun Ball (or Gnomon) to Columbia University

Gnomon = the "pointer" in a sundial

Sundial pamphlet distributed after the presentation of the Sundial.

Earlier, in 1910, modifications are made to the design of the platform for the Sundial.

The Sun Ball was featured on a postcard.

A view looking south from Low Library in the 1920s

In 1944, a crack is discoveredIn the granite sphere.

The Gnomon was removed from the Sundial, December 1946.

The New York Times reported That the ball had broken intopieces.

But we know that the ballwas returned to the Clarystone yard in the Bronx.

In October 1961,

the Sun Ball is moved to

Grass Lake.

Grass Lake in White Lake Township, Michigan, the current home of the Sun Ball.

Grass Lake→

While at Grass Lake, the Sun Ball was kept company for many years by a red Willys Jeep, similar to this one.

Recent ResearchNot necessary to read

any of this now.

Student on Quest for Sundial's Lost BallA Columbia College junior hopes to restore the Low Plaza Sundial to working order.Lauren AppelbaumColumbia Daily SpectatorPosted: 12/5/01

Like many students, Steve Pulimood, CC '03, has been meeting his friends at the sundial since his first year of college. But unlike the majority of students who simply use the sundial as a momentary meeting place, Pulimood thought a little longer about the curious structure.

The sundial Pulimood encountered in 1999 for the first time was quite different from the sundial when it was dedicated in 1914. At that time, a solid green granite gnomon measuring seven-feet in diameter and weighing 16 tons stood atop the base. Because the ball was removed in 1946 after it developed a crack, the sundial is no longer functional in its traditional way.

"The sad truth is that I knew it was not a sundial. I remember thinking, ëHow does this thing function as a sundial?'" Pulimood said.

Pulimood's curiosity spurred a personal investigation over the disappearance of the ball. In the past three years, his increasing interest has caused him to work toward having a new ball made.

Pulimood, a pre-med art history major, said his interest in the sundial started with a more general interest in the aesthetic qualities of college campuses. He said he is often disappointed with the lack of art on Columbia's campus, and has become active in the Art Properties Group, which promotes art around campus. He is also a staff writer in the Spectator art section.

"There was a time when the University had art all over its walls," Pulimood said.

This summer Pulimood spent his spare time searching through the Columbia archives for information on the sundial. After seeing a picture with an intact sundial in the background, Pulimood said he had a strong desire to learn about the fate of the ball. He uncovered a vast and varied history.

The stone for the ball was quarried from a famous Vermont mountain and granite quarry well-loved by a group from the class of 1885. According to Pulimood, they wanted to put a piece of the famous granite on Columbia's campus

Harold Jacoby, a Columbia professor of astronomy and donor from the class of 1885, conceived of the idea to make the piece of granite into a sundial, something he deemed a useful and intellectually stimulating function.

The ball was dedicated in 1914 but developed a crack that was discovered in 1944, a defect that the University attributed to the ball having sat in one place for 30 years. After two years of attempting to hold the ball together with a huge steel band, University officials had the ball removed in the winter of 1946 amid safety concerns.

Interest soon waned because of a common belief that the ball was destroyed in 1946.

"[The ball] was broken up to make the transporting job possible and the foundation is being capped for the present," read an article in the Dec. 20, 1946, issue of The New York Times.

In 1996, a planning framework was developed for the campus. Mark Burstein, vice president for Facilities Management, said one of the framework's themes was restoring the beauty of the McKim, Meade, and White campus while ensuring that it was appropriate for the present. Emily Lloyd, executive vice president for Administration, said the makers of the framework considered restoring the sundial and making a new granite ball. But in the end, the ball on the sundial was not brought back.

This summer, an art curator called the Department of Art Properties to reveal that, contrary to the Times' report, the ball was sitting on a triangular platform in the middle of a Michigan field. The current owner of the field inherited the granite ball with the land from the previous owner, who was affiliated with Columbia, though his exact affiliation with the University is unknown. In order to build on the field, the current owner contacted the art curator, who contacted Columbia.

The curator sent Columbia several pictures of the ball. While the rest were modern and in color, one of the photographs appeared to be very old. Pulimood realized that this photograph was a copy of one of the photographs in the archives.

At the time, Pulimood figured from the forest in the photograph's background that the picture of the ball had been taken in Vermont, before it was brought to Columbia's campus. Now it appears that the photograph was taken after the ball arrived in Michigan; the base in the photograph matches the base in the current pictures of the ball.

Pulimood met with President George Rupp in August to discuss the issue of bringing the original ball back. He then held another meeting in September with the other members of the Administration. Although several administrators had initial interest in recovering the ball, some disagreed with returning it to its original location. A number of administrators argued that in the ball's absence the base had taken on a new purpose.

"For 30 years, the sundial has been used as a free speech corner; that would be no longer possible with the sundial restored. I am not sure how [bringing back the ball] would enhance the function," Provost Jonathan Cole said.

"The base has become such a lively space—kids playing, people making speeches. It is better left as is," Lloyd said.

"I don't think we've made a final decision about it, but given that the campus is very different from when it was designed and the sundial is used for something very different today, it seems that the background does not support it coming back," Burstein said.

Pulimood also faces a number of financial difficulties. If administrators decide to have the ball returned, Pulimood must buy the ball back from the art curator and pay for its restoration and transportation to campus. Cole had approved $3,000 for testing the stability of the structure, but other administrators have questioned that allocation. If Pulimood receives this money, he will use it to hire someone in Michigan to determine if the ball could survive a trip from Michigan to Manhattan. Even if Pulimood does receive the $3,000, he will need a much larger amount of money for the rest of the restoration project. The Mellon Foundation is giving $50 million to people creating or restoring art pieces in memory of lives lost on Sept. 11. The smallest amount of money this foundation is allocating is $250,000. Pulimood has inquired about receiving this amount, but he has yet to apply for it.

Pulimood is considering rededicating the monument in honor of the 43 University alumni who died on Sept. 11. He suggests this would add rather than take away from the sundial's original purpose.

"This would be one of the very early monuments dedicated to the people who died," Pulimood said.

Even if the granite ball is not brought back to campus, the base itself is falling apart and in need of restoration. The facilities office is currently in the process of restoring the existing structure.

"It is a complex restoration process, and we want to do it in a way that will keep most of the old materials, so it is taking some time," Burstein said.

Pulimood's goal is to restore the existing base and bring back the granite ball. He said he will not stop in his efforts until the ball is returned.

"We need to realize that this ball is part of our history, that it was part of the original plan of our campus. Without the ball, it is incomplete," Pulimood said.

Catherine is tryingto contact Steve

Pulimood. He’s currently

at Oxford.

116th was Gnomon’s LandOnce upon a time, a great granite globe graced the crux of college walk. where is that sphere today?By Steven K. Pulimood Spectator Art Editor Posted: 5/7/02

At the axis of Columbia's campus, under the providence of Alma Mater's gaze, where once stood the literal timekeeper of Columbia's modern history now lies a relic--the base of our sundial.

Conceived in 1910 as a "functional wonder," the sundial was the gift of a group of alumni in cooperation with the celebrated architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White. Neither telling monument nor artful sculpture, the sundial was placed at a distance from Low Memorial Library so that its highly polished surface would receive the maximum amount of sunlight.

The sundial was created to stir curiosity, "to stimulate a desire for knowledge." A timepiece with an unprecedented cultural history (known at the time as the largest granite sphere in the world), the ball was created and positioned to be visible to all passersby. Integral to the focus of the commencement use of the plaza as well as a conversation piece for visitors to the University, the green granite ball was based on a principle of inspiring with intrigue.

"Horam Expecta Veniet," or "Await, the hour will come," reads the Latin motto at the base of the dial. For what, one might ask? At twelve noon, Eastern Standard Time, the elliptical shadow of the sphere would cut across the dates marked on two semi-concentric plaques at the base of the ball. A student at the time would question its calibrations; a modern New Yorker would check his wristwatch.

A functional and didactic purpose of the sundial was obfuscated, when in the winter of 1946 the University was forced to relinquish the sixteen-ton granite gnomon to a Bronx junkyard after the appearance of a fissure in the porous stone created concern for the stability of the sphere. A New York Times article of the following week read, "At the cost of $250, the University had the ball broken into pieces, discarded for junk." Case closed, or so we thought.

We have recently learned that for the past half-century, the ball has rested in a field in Michigan.

Today we stand, mindful of the exasperated anthropologist's deepest desire. A new generation of Columbia students is grateful for the preservation of a rich history, the vestiges of giant minds, its grandest tradition continued in fervent academic propulsion, and preserved in memoriam through its symbols: monuments, plaques, sculptures and portraits.

After John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, why do the portraits of Lionel Trilling and Meyer Schapiro rest astray from the sight of Columbia's students? A deep gratitude is left undirected and unappreciated. In the year 2002, Columbia shines in its location and resources, creating a magnet for the most promising students, yet within recent memory the generations who have arrived are educated within an architecture that is largely stripped of its grandeur. It is the legacy of these objects, great and impervious, that attest to the legends, struggles, and accomplishments of Columbia.

On the approaching eve of the College's 250th anniversary, the globe that sat atop our sundial has resurfaced in a location far from the cries of the Columbia lion. Why should we not retrieve, restore, and refurbish the sundial?

The famed Core Curriculum, the educational cornerstone of Columbia that exposes minds to the potent capability of open debate and practiced argument, rests in its profundity by encouraging one to reconsider a set of challenging writings during the course of a lifetime. As the names inscribed across the crown of Butler Library were once reflected in the mirrored surface of the sundial, so too its design and conception still today speak of our very ambition: to inspire through intrigue.

A University bound together by resources, location, and an interest in progress must provide for an environment that recognizes that we, as members of a unique academic community, stand upon great shoulders. This is a rare opportunity to restore a curiosity, thought to have been erased by time, to the full glory of its stature; a moment to reclaim and reground ourselves in a tradition and understanding of our campus. Columbians must challenge themselves to understand the purpose of our physical environment and its extended position into the process of learning, to encourage what Plato intentionally did not foster in the Republic: the arts and traditions that inspire independence of thought, the rightful and precarious mission of our education.

The base of the sundial at Columbia today.

Chris and Hunter Heine in front of the Sun Ball, Grass Lake, White Lake Township, Michigan – August 2006

Hunter Heine in front of the Sun Ball, Grass Lake, White Lake Township, Michigan – August 2006

Sylvana McLean in front of the Sun Ball, Grass Lake, White Lake Township, Michigan – August 2006