A few weeks back Terry Chenier posted a blog about the landmark clock in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Throughout North America many towns have similar stories of clocks erected or as a focal point around their older town business districts. This can also be said of Waterbury, Ct, where there 2 similar style clocks in the central business district, but neither of them is more pronounced than the clock atop the current offices of the regional/local newspaper, the Waterbury Republican American.
Formerly Union Station, an important stop along the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, and the grand train station opened in 1909 and is still considered among the most spectacular buildings anywhere in New England. Complete with gargoyles, the tower houses a clock, the largest in New England. The tower bell was installed in 1916 and can often be better heard on the city's nearby hills than at street level because of the great height of the tower and today's traffic noise.
The building was designed by the well-known New York architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White (the same firm that designed the Great Hall at Ellis Island). Designed in the Renaissance Revival style, the exterior is red and brown brick and the interior boasts the Guastavino tile found in other historic buildings, including Ellis Island. The 245-foot tall tower was added late in the design phase to satisfy the demands of a railroad executive who had visited Sienna, Italy and wanted to copy the Torre del Mangia.
This architectural firm also did the original Penn Station, wings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the J.P. Morgan library. It cost $332,000, is 240-feet high, has 318 steps and the clock was made by Seth Thomas Co. from nearby Thomaston, Ct, with dials 16-feet in diameter with 5-foot tall Roman numerals. The eight she-wolf gargoyles are a reminder of the myth of Romulus & Remus. This is because, like Rome, Waterbury is surrounded by 7 distinct hills, with a river flowing though the center valley, the Naugatuck, which is also fed by the Mad River.
Back in the early 1990's, the maintenance people of the newspaper meticulously restored the entire mechanism of the clocks. All were disassembled and the old gears and drive trains were rebuilt or replaced. At that same time, the original the drive was converted over to the electronic system that currently drives time.
Driving through the highway interchange in Waterbury, CT the clock tower still stands as the focal point of the town's business district, a reminder of day's gone bye.
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