THE TOWER OF JEWELS AND ITS SHIMMERING NOVAGEMS
(Page updated extensively March '07.)

The Tower of Jewels was the 435 foot tall centerpiece building of the PPIE. It was taller than the other fair buildings by a couple hundred feet, and was positioned at the main Scott Street entrance to the fair.

Besides for its height, which could be seen as taller than the various SF hills as one took the East Bay ferry towards the city, the primary outstanding feature of the building was how it was liberally decorated with 102,000 Novagems -- faceted cut glass "jewels" that hung over the building's surface. Made in Bohemia, the Novagems came in several colors of glass and were mounted on brass hangers with a small mirror behind them to further increase their reflecting. As these jewels freely hung from the sides of the building, the breezes would make them independently sway, causing the building to shimmer in a way that people say was impossible to describe unless one saw it in person. This effect was further increased at nighttime when an assortment of 54 searchlights hidden around the tower were pointed towards it, creating a spectacular sparkling impression.

On a few special occasions, they put on an event known as "Burning the Tower" where (according to Todd's, The Story of the Exposition), "Concealed ruby lights, and pans of red fire behind the colonnades on the different galleries, seemed to turn the whole gigantic structure into a pyramid of incandescent metal, glowing toward white heat and about to melt. From the great vaulted base to the top of the sphere, it had the unstable effulgence of a charge in a furnace, and yet it did not melt, however much you expected it to, but stood and burned like some sentient thing doomed to eternal torment."

During the fair, new jewels were sold as souvenirs, and these ones often have a small PPIE emblem on the back. After the close of the fair, the actual jewels that hung on the tower were sold for $1 each. These jewels often have little chips in them, as they had been blown around against the building for the better part of a year. Some of these have a little dangling brass tag with the tower on one side and 'certified' by Walter Ryan, creator of the Novagems on the other. There were also many jewel-related souvenirs, including pins, cufflinks, and spoons.

 

Novagem Certificate of Purchase

Novagem Ad from Newspaper

Novagem Postcard Advertisement

The five sizes of Novagems.

The eight colors of Novagems.