Icon still the tock of downtown

Because Si Rose finally found a bag of parts in his attic, Tacoma’s last remaining mechanical street clock lives to tell stories as well as time.

As with most American cities, street clocks were common in downtown Tacoma. Often placed by jewelers and watch makers, the clocks symbolized dependability and, ironically, permanence.

Steph Farber, who runs LeRoy Jewelers, remembers when there were a dozen jewelers in the part of downtown where his store is now – and a half-dozen clocks. Weisfield & Goldberg, Richards, Gundersons, Friedmans, Friedlanders, Grimstead, Mierows were all downtown.

The most notable timepieces were the four-sided clock in front of Burnett Brothers at 924 Broadway, the even-more ornate Mahncke & Co. clock at 919 Broadway and the two-faced pedestal in front of Sprenger & Jones at 1141 Broadway.

Then there was A. Rose Credit Jewelers, down on Pacific Avenue between South 13th and 15th streets. Abraham Rose placed a clock on the sidewalk out front to promote his business. It was 1920, the year before his son Simon was born.

Simon Jerome Rose told me once he’d wanted to be a journalist after serving in the Army Air Corps in World War II, including fighting in the Battle of the Bulge. Instead he returned to Tacoma and went to work for his father running the store.

The Rose clock remained until it was hit by a truck and badly damaged sometime in the 1960s. City crews hauled the carcass away.

By then, most of the other street clocks had disappeared as well. Stores began leaving downtown after the Tacoma Mall opened in 1964. When Friedlanders left, the clock it inherited after purchasing Mahncke was hauled off to the dump when no one wanted it.

Even cities that held onto downtown shopping lost clocks that were considered old-fashioned and an impediment to pedestrians. In their place came the modern-though-sterile digital time display.

Fast forward to 1986. (I’ll resist saying, “set your watch forward.”) Tacoma’s pedestrian-only experiment known as Broadway Plaza was ending, having failed to slow the erosion of retail downtown. Farber had grown tired of responding to questions about when LeRoy would follow.

“I thought we needed a statement that we weren’t leaving,” Farber said. So he began searching for a street clock and found the A. Rose clock splayed out on the floor of the city street department warehouse. Despite its rough condition (they found empty liquor bottles hidden inside), the works were mostly intact.

Farber hired Jerry Martin of Seattle to piece it back together. But a critical part was damaged – the transmission that transfers the rotation of the vertical shaft to the gears that move the hands. Rose said he thought he still had some spare parts at home, but when he searched for them he came up empty.

“I said, ‘Si, you have to look again,’ ” Farber recalls. When he struck out again, Farber urged him again to keep trying.

Finally, in a corner of Rose’s attic, in a nondescript bag, sat the key parts needed to restore the clock.

Si Rose, the Farber family and the city made a deal: Rose donated the clock to the city, the Farbers sponsored the repairs, and the city mounted it on the sidewalk in front of LeRoy. While it is legally city property (note the ’80s-era city logo on the faces), Farber keeps an eye on it and winds it once a week with the original brass key.

“According to Si’s pronouncement, we wind it on the same day at the same time,” Farber said. Why so consistent?

“I think it’s sympathetic magic,” Farber said. “If you’re accurate, the watch will be accurate.”

And accurate it is. The only adjustment is seasonal. Because of the effects of temperature on the metal, the pendulum is slightly shortened in the summer, lengthened in the winter.

Farber says it hides in plain sight. “It’s something people don’t notice but they use all the time,” he said.

The few remaining mechanical street clocks are considered treasures. Downtown Puyallup is still graced with the J.G. Johnson clock in front of fourth-generation Johnson Jewelers. And Seattle, which had many clocks because street-clock maker Mayer and Brothers was located there, still has nine clocks standing. Most have historic landmark protection.

Reproductions such as the “Doc” Farrens’ miniaturized Big Ben in Proctor have started to appear as well. Si Rose died July 27 at the age of 89. At the hour of his graveside service two days later, Art Stop owner Phyllis Harrison draped the clock in black crepe and, for the first time since it was restored, it was stopped. For that weekend at least, and on that clock, time stood still.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657 petercallaghan@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/politics