About Time Clock Restoration In the News
Timeless Timepieces:
The Clocks of Trump National
Billy Keefe, Facilities Manager
Trump National Golf Club
Westchester, NY
Fall/Winter 2007 Newsletter
In the early and mid-nineteenth century, when American cities grew and emerged as centers of trade and commerce, a common theme also surfaced among them. This theme materialized in the form of prominent clock towers and street clocks. In an age when wrist watches did not exist, public square clocks not only served a useful purpose to the community, but also represented symbolic significance of wealth and prosperity. Clockmakers, typically from the Northeast, flourished in this era, coupling their artistic ability with newly established tools that enabled mass production. As the twentieth century turned, few cities were without prominent clock towers and few cities had streets without discernable street clocks.
It is not a stretch of truth to say Trump National Golf Club boasts two such "street clocks" in a fashion depicting both grandeur and functionality. The timepiece overlooking our course is an exact replica of a Seth Thomas work from the early 1800s. The Seth Thomas Clock Company was at the forefront of Edwardian and Victorian clock desgn during that time. Mr. Trump insisted on the exact placement of this classic "four dial" clock, and few can argue that the area chosen is not as timeless as the clock itself. One of Seth Thomas' most recognizable works is represented in the tower clock at Grand Central Station in New York.
Not to be outdone, our E. Howard clock in front of the building welcomes members and guests alike. Edward Howard, another leader in clock design and manufacturing during the late nineteeth century, also had roots in New England. Both the E Howard Clock Company and the Seth Thomas Clock Company are still in existence today.
How did the clocks arrive here and how were they assembled? Like the clocks of old, our treasures are products of old-school New England horology. Mr. Martin Cooke of Higganum, Connecticut and his wife, Mary own About Time, a small company specializing in clock assembly and preservation. As a horologist, Martin travels the eastern seaboard contracting for public and private clock owners.
Whereas cast iron has been replaced with cast aluminum and precision gearing has been enhanced by modern GPS, the clocks of Trump National are manufactured in the United States and remain exact replicas of timeless American craftmanship.
Restored Library Clock Tells Time After 25-Year Hiatus
By Ken DiMaurao
The Plainville Citizen
December 2006
People driving by Plainville Public Library at 56 E. Main St. may not be late for their next appointment as officials hailed the recent renovation of the building's four-sided clock tower and its mechanism that literally had been frozen in time for the last quarter century.
Peter Chase, library director, said the board of library directors approved the repair to the clocks and its mechanism. The money for the restoration project is being financed by the library fund overseen by the trustees rather than tax dollars provided by the town. The money will come from endowments and private donations.
Workers from About Time Clock Restoration company in Higganum installed the new mechanism, power unit and bezels Dec 4 and 5. Martin T. Cooke, owner of the restoration firm, said the new mechanism is state-of-the-art and will adjust itself through a computer chip that receives the correct time from orbiting satellites.
The time will adjust automatically for daylight saving time in the spring and the fall or if there is a power outage.
Cooke said he has been restoring clocks for more than a dozen years and has been concentrating on fixing steeple and tower clocks in the northeast. He said the restoration of the library clock tower was not particularly difficult and will last for many years. He said in addition to the mechanism, the faces of the clocks and their bezels or rims were replaced. "The bezels were rotted," Cooke said. The clock, which now has replicated faces, won't need any maintenance for the next 25 or 30 years, he said.
Chase said the original clock faces, which were donated in 1931 as part of the library by Plainville philanthropist Charles Norton, are being given to the Plainville Historical Society. For years, the tower was the only working outdoor clock in downtown Plainville. For some reason, it stopped working about 25 years ago, Chase said. Library officials had hoped to get the clock working again.
"The clock tower restoration is one of the final projects of the library construction" that saw a new wing and addition built as well as the restoration of the original 1931 part of the building. Chase said, "It will add some tradition and charm to Plainville's downtown commercial section."
Patrons attending the Dec. 13th library open house for the holidays got a chance to see the lighting of the newly restored tower. Chase said he is delighted the clock is working again.
Like Clockwork
The North Providence Town Hall finally gets a clock back in the tower. The man who made it talks about the craft of building big clocks.
S.I. Rosenbaum
Providence Journal
November 2002
High above the town, Martin Cooke balanced the new clock face against his chest and tightened the hands.
Rain flecked the round windows of the clock tower, and Cooke could smell the faint vinegar scent of pigeon droppings under his feet.
On the walls below him, he could read the initials of the men who installed the first clock in 1931 when the tower was first built.
Cooke lives in Higganum, Conn., but he travels up and down the East Coast repairing tower clocks, from New York City to Boston. Wherever he goes, Cooke sees the names and initials of the clocksmiths who have come before him. They're written on beams and on the backs of clock faces. He never leaves his own name. "Maybe I should," he said.
Yesterday, he was in town to install a new clock in the Town Hall tower, a project that's part of a larger effort to restore the hall. The old clock stopped at least 20 years ago. No one seems to remember it working, except for a few months in the 1980s when a local watch repairman got it running for a while.
Replacing the Town Hall clock was a routine job, Cooke said. The only surprise, he added, were the two bullet holes he found in the old sheets of glass that covered the clock face.
"Target practice for someone," said Cooke.
The new clock is a state-of-the-art custom model, with a computer to correct for Daylight Savings and a radio receiver to take the time from satellites orbiting above.
Cooke is crazy about clocks. "Obsessed," he said. The ones he likes the best are the oldest ones, the mechanical masterpieces with their hidden works painted with flowers and leafed in gold.
One of those -- an 1880 Seth Thomas -- stands in the 20-foot tower Cooke built for it in his backyard. Another graces his barn. "To me clocks are like oil paintings," he said. "Fine art."
In the clock world, Cooke is an anomaly, because he's so young: only 39. At clocksmith gatherings, he said, he's usually the youngest person in the room. "Everyone I know is 50, 60, 80, or dead," he said.
"The younger generation is mostly interested in computers these days," he said. "...They want to do something high tech, that pays a lot of money."
He works with an even younger assistant, Matt Polansky, 35, who wears a striped engineer's cap and talks to himself as he works.
"Where are those screws? I wonder where I put them."
The pair first worked together as news photographers, and both of them drifted out of the business, as Cooke's burgeoning clock obsession drew him to becoming a full-time clocksmith, and later a clock tower specialist.
They work well together, joking and talking; both of them wear wristwatches that pick up a radio signal from the Atomic clock in Colorado.
Carefully, the two lifted the three clock faces into the tower's three windows, one by one, securing them with wooden bolsters.
Polansky's grandfather was a clocksmith, he said, and he used to let Polansky help him when he was young. "Most people don't know what it takes to do this line of work," Polansky said. "You've got to be dedicated. Martin's like my grandfather: he's dedicated to it."
The job requires carpentry and masonry skills, as well as knowledge of metal working and electrical engineering. It also takes stamina.
Every day, Cooke said, he goes to the YMCA to use the StairMaster. "I can climb stairs endlessly," he said.
But the job has afforded him some of the best views on the East Coast, as well as a rare knowledge of the history of New England timekeeping, Cooke said.
He keeps records of the clocks he replaces, so he can keep track of the changing trends in clockmaking through the years. Often, he'll find an even older clock than the one he's been called to replace, gathering dust in the subattic of a clocktower.
Sometimes, he said, he feels like he was born into the wrong time. "Everything I like is old," he said. "Anything that winds up, or has weights."
With the clock faces in place, he and Polansky connected the wires from the hands to the clock's computer and turned it on. Then they climbed down from the tower, down from the dusty basement, and out into the rainy afternoon.
It's About Time: East Hartford's 'Big Ben' tolls again
By Kevin Wildes
Journal Inquirer
October 2000
Every five days for 50 years, George D. Bryan Jr. climbed 106 stairs to wind and maintain the clock in the tower at the First Congregational Church on Main Street.
Townspeople timed themselves to the sound of the hourly bell. According to church sexton Dennis McCarthy, one man who lives across the street didn't even own a clock, relying instead on the town's own "Big Ben."
But Bryan, 72, died in May, and a month later, the ever-reliable clock stopped working. And so did some people's internal clocks - standing at a nearby bus stop, they would glance toward the tower, McCarthy says, unsure of whether the buses were running on time.
Others approached the Rev. Linda Bagnal in the church's parking lot, asking whether the time frozen on the clock was accurate. No, she'd answer, prompting other questions about when the clock would be fixed.
It wasn't an easy question to answer.
McCarthy knew how to wind and oil the 65-year-old clock, but getting it to run again was another story.
"When the clock stopped, the first thing I did was pray because I had no idea what to do," McCarthy says.
So McCarthy and church board members searched for someone qualified to fix the clock and had no luck. And after "puling our hair out for weeks," McCarthy says, church officials decided they might have to arrange to have the clock run by electricity.
The clock would run. The bell would ring. But the tradition of someone climbing up the steps to wind the clock would be lost forever.
That's when it became time for About Time, a one-man business that specializes in fixing clocks.
The church board found About Time's owner, Martin Cooke, in the Higganum section of Haddam. Finding him wasn't easy, as Cooke is a rare breed: Working on clocks from New Jersey to Massachusetts, he describes his competition as "one guy in Maine and one guy in Pennsylvania."
Cooke found two main problems in the church's clock. For one, it had never been thoroughly cleaned, and oil buildup slowed the pivots. With that extra friction, the bushings - circular pieces that the pivots turn into - had worn into egg shapes.
But after a meticulous cleaning and the addition of Cooke's handmade bushings, the bell started ringing over East Hartford again this September.
Cooke estimates that the work he did on the clock should keep it running for another 60 years.
"This clock won't need to be reworked until I'm long gone," Cooke says.
Cooke's returns to the clock tower will be limited to fine-tuning. Most of the maintenance will fall on McCarthy's shoulders.
"I'm a church sexton who takes care of the clock," McCarthy explains. "I don't think I'm qualified to be called a clock sexton."
Nevertheless, it's fair to say that the clock runs on gravity and McCarthy's sweat. Every five days McCarthy treks up the winding staircase, which in some places is little more than a foot wide. Once at the top, he winds two 100-foot reels of cable. The first reel, which powers the pendulum, weighs about 200 pounds. The second, which rings the bell, weighs 800 pounds.
"Let's just say that I don't need to join a gym," McCarthy says. "I get a step workout coming up here and a bench press winding the cables."
Despite the work it takes to maintain the clock, McCarthy says that he wouldn't have it any other way. In fact, he says, he'll keep the clock going "for as long as God keeps me going."
Bagnal, who just resigned after seven years with the church, adds that the church was dedicated to keep the clock running as it always has.
"Members of the congregation are proud of their history," Bagnal says. "To modernize the clock would be like saying goodbye to tradition."
Church historian Nancy Arbuckle remembers climbing the church tower as a girl. A member of the church for more than 50 years, Arbuckle says that the clock means everything to East Hartford.
"I like to think of it as God's beacon on Main Street," Arbuckle says. "It's something that people have come to rely on."
Parishioner Leroy Spiller, a friend of Bryan's for 50 years, found the clock's restoration to be a fitting legacy to a man who dedicated his life to East Hartford's Big Ben.
"He loved that clock," Spiller says. "If he can look down and see it running again, he'd be delighted."