Architectural History of Sterling Memorial Library

Cross Campus

Cross Campus construction, circa 1968-1969

Cross Campus construction, circa 1968-1969

Cross Campus, the grassy quadrangle in front of Sterling Memorial Library, is one of Yale’s primary gathering spaces. Since its creation, Cross Campus has served as a site of celebration, relaxation, and resistance. As the heart of the campus, the library and cross campus have played a central role in community and activism at Yale. Some highlights of events on Cross Campus include: 

• 1968 protests surrounding the building of the Cross Campus Library (now Bass Library). Students were concerned that initial plans for the library would significantly change Cross Campus’s qualities as one of the primary gathering green spaces on campus. Initial plans called for the construction of a second stack tower and ground-level skylights on Cross Campus.
• A fall 1984 sit-in in Cross Campus Library protesting the disruption of student life caused by tensions between the Local 34 union and the Yale administration, resulting in a strike. 
• A 1978 protest and a 1985 24-hour vigil condemning apartheid and demanding Yale University divestment from companies doing business with South Africa.
• A 2017 protest against Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration that barred citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries entering the United States. Over a thousand Yale and New Haven community members gathered, and a benefit concert for Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services followed the protest.
   

Yale University Cross Campus, 2021