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Citizen complaint of the day: Custom House clock not so handy at night
By adamg on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 7:24am
A timeless citizen complains about the clock faces on the Custom House:
Why are the numbers illuminated at night, but not the hands?? It's impossible to tell the time if you can't see the hands... Have lived in Boston 10+ years, no one has ever known the answer to this question...
City officials respond there's nothing they can do about the hands of time because the tower is run by the Marriott hotel chain.
Photo by David Grant used under this Creative Commons license.
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Comments
This has bothered me for
This has bothered me for years too. Once it's dark this clock is the analog version of blinking 12:00 digital clocks.
10 Years
What? You have only been here for 10 years? Clam up flatlander. Who do you think you are? Go back to Peioria and stop complaining. This is the greatest city in the world. We have downtown archeological digs that go on for years in our shopping mecca, Bridges rendered useful only for cars and not protesters, a strong chance of not getting murdered if you are white. We even allow you your kids to go to school way across on the other side of town. There are so many reasons why Boston is great. Why are you complaining?
Get a watch.
The Custom House clock is difficult to see at night. Email Marriott and tell them your issue with the clock. Better yet, take one of their daily tours and ask the tour guide why the hands are dark.
And they complained...
By taking a photo on their smartphone and submitting the complaint through the Citizen's Connect app...instead of just looking at the time on their phone.
Misses the point
Obviously the question was not, "What time is it?" but rather "Why is the Custom House clock the way it is?"
Invisible hands of time
The guy who renovated the clock is an old high school buddy of my husband.
The main reason they aren't lit: historical accuracy in restoration. They were never lit, only backlit from the dial as shown. The second reason? In order to be lit, they would either have to have lights on them, lights in them, or lights shining on them to the outside. Carbon fiber and resin doesn't light well from the inside, and lights outside would add both weight and wind drag and either would require wiring.
The hands are actually quite high tech for their time - very long carbon fiber structures from the days when that was more of an edgy craft than a mass market product - in other words, very tricky to make and get right. I remember that they made about 10 of them just to get the ones that are on the clock. They chose the material because the hands had to be very light and very strong so as to withstand the wind loadings but not put undue wear and tear on the clock mechanism. It was already difficult to give them a historically correct appearance and get the performance needed to prevent having to frequently replace them and the movement - lighting is not in that design.
Excellent report
All points make sense to me. Although, I'm sure someone might want to argue about it.
another snore-fest from S.G.
The guy who renovated the clock is an old high school buddy of my husband.
Of course he is. Because S.G. has an, no, THE answer to everything.
Jealous much?
Guess it must suck that you know no one interesting, ploppy.
SG may make me roll my eyes sometimes too (although I am a fellow-sufferer of know-it-allitis). But I happen to think it quite likely that her spouse knows the guys who reno'ed and now upkeep the clock - they're local guys. When they did the reno back in the 80s it was big news.
However, I think the excuse of "historical accuracy" is a little off. The facade lighting was redone just a couple years ago, and includes a bunch of movable LED spots that are supposed to illuminate the face - including the hands. Note that this has nothing to do with the clockworks though, so the horologist friend is probably not the guy to ask about it.
And the purchase agreement that was made with the city *does* require the owners to maintain the building's exterior and plaza - it's part of the National Register of Historic Landmarks, after all. I can certainly see the city making a quick call to the Marriott if they start getting a bunch of pings about it.
Love the Citizens' Connect app
It's such a great mechanism for getting questions answered:
Could somebody out West Roxbury way please snap a photo of the VFW parkway and submit it to Citizens' Connect with the question: "Why is it that we drive in the parkway and park on the driveway?"
Custom House Tower clock question - the problem in a nutshell
The fact that someone would submit this question to the City via citizens connect only reinforces my feeling that the reason why our government is screwed up is because so few people actually know anything about our government and what it is and is not responsible for doing.
The next level of the problem manifests itself in cases where, for example, people complain to Massport about the subway system, or MWRA about the streetlight on the corner being out.
Yes, but not a great example
Up until the late 90's, the building *was* the responsibility of the city going back to the late 80's (and before that it was owned by the Feds). It's only been the last 14-15 years that Marriott has owned and operated the building.
I find the people who submit requests for problems in Cambridge, Newton, or Brookline (and I'm not talking about right on the borders either) to be better examples of what you're talking about.
Maybe not the best example, but 14-15 years is a long time.
I don't mean to sound combative, but 14-15 years of non-governmental ownership is not a long enough time for folks to realize that the building is now operated by a private entity? 14-15 years ago there was a giant elevated highway running through the middle of the city and we would still have needed a tetanus shot if we fell in the harbor. We'd also be talking about an entity called the MDC, few of us would have dreamed of taking a touristy day trip to the Harbor Islands with a National Park Service guide, we'd be driving to New Hampshire if we wanted to buy alcohol on a Sunday, and we could have been forgiven for thinking that Ft. Devens was still an active duty Army base. These are all things that we should all probably realize really aren't the case anymore.
My point was that things change, and at some point, people can't reasonably rely on "that's the way always has been" thinking and still sound credible. I don't expect people to know everything that happens in government within days or weeks of it happening, but 14-15 years is a long time, and I'm just not willing to cut folks that much slack - particularly when the sign on the front door says "Marriott".
Admittedly, I'm not at my most articulate today, but the larger point I was suggesting was that perhaps if people hadn't migrated this general we've-always-done-it-and-it's-always-been-this-way mentality to all governmental issues (e.g., "there will always be social security because there has been for as long as I've been alive!"), we would have taken a more prudent policy course during the good times and not been in quite the predicament we're in now.
I think those Harbor Island ferries...
... have been running for around 14 years (the National Park folks got involved in 1997).
BTWW -- Social Secuity was doing fine -- until a certain former president decided to spend the reserves (built up since the time of Reagan) on tax cuts and several wars.
Or
Or people calling 911 because they are lost in a corn maze.
It's 9:23... was that so
It's 9:23... was that so hard?
Forget the clock-I want to see the observation deck & "plaza"
While the City may pass the buck to Marriot, this is a City of Boston building, something Marriot conveniently would like the citizenry to forget.
The historical accuracy explains why they are not lit, but more importantly, the question should be why are the public excluded from the Observation Deck on this building, except for a few limited hours, and the sidewalk and purported plaza at this historic gem used as a parking lot???
The deal given to Marriot was on the condition it, including the AMAZING observation deck be accessible to the public, but over the years, the City has let them have fewer and fewer hours at totally inaccessible times. Plus now they "suggest" a donation...sure, a nice gesture, but this is a PUBLIC building on the National Register of Historic Places!
I'm with you on this
I'd like to have more access to the observation deck. Maybe they're afraid of some terrorist attack up there?
Dirty area
The sidewalk and area surrounding this building is filthy and often strewn with trash and empty liquor bottles. Not the front entrance area, but the rest of it.
Deck Observation Hours
They have cut back from a few years ago. The deck is open everyday, except for Friday, at 2:00 PM. As late as 2007 it was 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM.
Let's hope the city can stay vigilant against any further cutbacks.
It wasn't so long ago that
It wasn't so long ago that the clock was a running joke in the city because it was only right twice a day. (I assume it was under city control at that time.)
Wasn't there a time
Wasn't there a time that the old Boston Gas Company was paying for the clock? Maybe in the 80s? Or am I thinking of a different clock?
Maybe it's me...
but I don't look at it. It's only been right maybe twice in my lifetime as I can recall. I can see it's historical value, but as a timepiece...ehhhhhhh, not so much.
Sounds about as good as the Weather Beacon
Which tells you, with 2 bits of resolution, what the weather either is, was, or might be over an indeterminate time period!
Do you need more bits?
Clear, cloudy, rain, snow (or canceled Red Sox game)... What more do you want?
But I do recall reading somewhere that the beacon is predicting something like 2 hours out...however, I can now no longer figure out where I saw that.
Definitely not
I've lived in sight of the beacon for 4.5 years, and if there is any set timeframe, it's nothing that simple. My best guess is that it's "tomorrow morning" until at some point it's "today", and I think in the late afternoons it's more "a brief recap of today's weather" till it turns to tomorrow again.
Except when it's wrong.
Whiner
Cannot see the hands, cannot tell what time it is?
Listen for when the USS Constitution fires off her cannon. That means it is sundown.