The UT Tower
Austin's most majestic phallic symbol.
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More Tourist Trap
Like it or not, tourist attractions are part of this city, too. But do they deserve the bad rap they get from grizzled locals? The A.V. Club takes an ongoing, objective look at the cold, hard facts of establishments that largely exist to draw in transients in Tourist Trap. In this edition: the infamous University Of Texas Tower, symbol of Austin's best and brightest, as well as its darkest hour.
Texas.com says: “Standing over 300 feet tall, the University of Texas Tower offers a lovely view of the university campus and the surrounding city of Austin. The lovely Beaux-Arts style building topped by its majestic tower and carillon is considered the heart of the university and regularly sounds its bells, filling the campus with song.”
Kinky Friedman says: “He was sitting up there for more than an hour / Way up there on the Texas Tower / Shooting from the 27th floor”—“The Ballad Of Charles Whitman”
The A.V. Club says: It’s a fact that the observation deck of the University Of Texas Tower affords spectacular vistas, from the burnt orange rooftops of the University campus to the downtown skyline blossoming with high-rise condos. And no doubt there are a handful of architecture buffs that do get excited for an up-close glimpse of Beaux-Arts style. But let’s get real: Nobody has ever visited Dallas’ Texas School Book Depository to study the proper method for disposing of worn-out Dick And Jane readers. Lee Harvey Oswald’s sniper perch has long since been converted into a museum dedicated to the Kennedy assassination, but take the official tour of Austin’s most infamous landmark, and you won’t see or hear a word about Charles Whitman, the UT student who killed 14 people and wounded 32 others during his lunchtime shooting spree from atop the Tower on August 1, 1966. Nevertheless, it’s this bit of morbid local history that accounts for a sizable portion of the site’s tourist traffic.
For many years, the Tower was anything but a tourist trap—in fact, visitors were banned from the observation deck between 1974 and 1999, due not to any Whitman stigma but rather a rash of suicides. (Nine people plummeted to their deaths after jumping from the deck.) During a remodeling of the tower in the late ’90s, a cage-like lattice was installed to prevent rapid vertical egress, and the deck was reopened to the public on a limited basis. Groups depart from the lobby of the Main Building hourly between 6 and 8 p.m., and a very reasonable $5 fee ensures you a spot on the tour. (Advance reservations are recommended.)
After passing through a metal detector, your group will be greeted at the elevators (converted from dumbwaiters used during the Tower’s brief stint as the University library) by a chipper pair of student tour guides. Although they will be happy to debunk the myth that the Tower was designed by a Rice graduate to resemble that school’s owl mascot (it was actually the centerpiece of architect Paul Phillippe Cret’s master design of the campus) and sing the praises of longtime carilloneur Tom Anderson (the man responsible for playing all those groovy tunes on the tower bells), there’s zero mention of Austin’s darkest hour in their spiel.
After a swift elevator ride to the 27th floor, a flight of stairs leads up to the narrow observation deck that surrounds the tower just beneath the massive clock faces. You’re free to roam and take in the sights (including a spectacular sunset, if you time your visit right), but again, don’t expect to find so much as a plaque detailing the horrific events of 43 years ago.
Tourist Trap? Yes, but for all the wrong reasons. No one is suggesting that the University should dedicate its main building to a mass murderer, but there’s no point in trying to whitewash such a significant chapter in the Tower’s history. The tour guides have little to do once the group reaches the deck, so why not have them detail the heroic efforts of law enforcement to bring down the sniper, or at least point out the patched-over bullet holes? Ah, well—maybe when Kinky Friedman finally becomes governor.
