After more than a year in hiding, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank clocktower finally began to shed its veil of black netting and blue plywood last week, allowing its shining dome and the upper portions of its four-faced timepiece to emerge. By Wednesday, the clock remained half dressed, its faces playing peek-a-boo from above the protective garment.
Now, it’s only a matter of time before the clock itself starts ticking again. But how much time, exactly?
Andrew MacArthur, a top official in the company that owns the landmark building and is transforming it into luxury condos, would only say, “The near future.”
MacArthur’s Dermot Company partnered with Magic Johnson to purchase the building back in 2005 and convert it from a Tooth Tower of dentists offices into high-end residences. The company covered the clock in September 2006, saying at the time that repairs to the celebrated clock atop the tallest building in Brooklyn would be complete by July 4, 2007.
But Independence Day came and went, and the clock remained hidden.
The delay is due to an expanded scope of work, according to MacArthur.
“We elected to do more rather than less,” he said. “We knew how important the clock was to the borough. And we elected to try and do the right thing with it.”
Doing the right thing hasn’t come cheap. The firm initially intended to spend $410,000 on repairing the 78-year-old clock. Now, the price tag is nearing $1 million.
That extra money has helped fund the replacement of the clock’s conventional light bulbs with LED lights on the clock hands, and fiber-optic lights on the numbers. The new lights will retain the clock’s capacity to change color with the season. Dermot also cleaned the entire face, not something they’d originally intended on doing.
Ken Neill, a clocktower expert who visited the ticker last month, said he was impressed with the clock, and with the work completed thus far.
“They did a beautiful job as far as restoring the outside,” said Neill, who represents Christoph Paccard Bellfoundries, a 200-year-old clocktower and bell outfit. “And the electricians were in the process of doing some rewiring when I was there. I had never seen a clock so big in my life.”
“That clock is beautiful,” continued Neill, in a bit of a rapture. “It’s magnificent. It’s very unique.”
