The first stop was the sidewalk clock at Broadway and Maiden Lane. This one is embedded in the pavement and has been telling the correct time since 1899. (The date on the clock is the date William Barthman Jewelers was founded.)
Just up Broadway at Chambers Street, hiding behind some scaffolding, is the New York Sun Clock. It's the last-surviving piece from the building that once housed the newspaper. The Sun: It Shines For All.
On my way to Union Square to check out the next one on the list, I ran into a couple of other clocks I'd never noticed before. I don't know anything interesting about them, other than they're not actually keeping time. (They don't make them like they used to, apparently.)
At Union Square, I found the Metronome, an artwork created by Kristin Jones. It tells the time to the second. As you read left to right, the time ticks toward midnight; reading from right to left, it counts down to midnight. I've walked by this clock for years and had no idea what it was.
I wandered up Broadway and over to Fifth, and across from Madison Square Park to find the Golden Clock in line with the Flatiron Building (one of my favorite NYC buildings). It's not quite so golden in the shade. Sorry about that.
Then heading east on 23rd Street, the clock on the Met Life building.
The next stop was the Schwartzenbach clock. It's installed on the Schwartzenbach Building on Park Avenue South and has two mechanical gnomes (you can make them out on top if you look closely) who signal the turning of the hour by what looks like one beating the other with a stick. This building is also surrounded by scaffolding, so the picture isn't ideal.
Head up Park Avenue till you reach Grand Central Terminal and its many clocks. (NB: According to Dan Bruckner of Metro-North, "Grand Central is the terminus of all trains that come here, so it is, and always has been, a terminal, not a station." Got that?? :) To read more about GCT, click here.
We start with the clock embedded in the statue of Mercury:
Then finally, I went inside to see THE Grand Central clock--the one where millions of people have said, "Meet me under the clock!" and knew exactly what that meant. Each of the four faces is made from opal and it has been valued by Christie's at $10-20 million.
After all of that walking, I headed to Baked by Melissa for some much needed refreshment... (Thanks to my friend, Ann, for this photo.)
