New York City is filled with lovely decorative sidewalk clocks—some standing tall on the street, others hinged to a building.
But I don’t know of any others that are actually embedded in the sidewalk, like this Roman numeral beauty underfoot at the northeast corner of Broadway and Maiden Lane.
German immigrant William Barthman opened his first jewelry store nearby at 43 Maiden Lane, then moved it to 174 Broadway at this corner.
When the clock came along is still unclear. According to a 1994 New York Times item, the store manager says “some kind of clock has been there ‘a minimum of 80 to 90 years,’ including a wooden model, an electrical one and the current quartz version.”
Tags: Barthman Jewelers, Broadway and Maiden Lane, Maiden Lane, New York City jewelers, New York City street clocks, NYC sidewalk clocks, William Barthman
Ephemeral New York 
October 10, 2011 at 5:10 am |
I notice that “four o’clock” mark is rendered in Roman Numerals as “IIII” rather than the more common “IV.”
Is this clock still keeping accurate time?
October 10, 2011 at 5:14 am |
Great catch, I didn’t even notice that. No, the time isn’t accurate–but hey, it’s still a lovely piece of street-chitecture.
October 10, 2011 at 3:53 pm |
On clock faces, the ‘4’ is typically ‘IIII’ and not ‘IV’ – not really sure why, but my dad fixed clocks and watches when I was a kid and so I noticed this a lot. A quick google search throws up this: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/438/why-do-clocks-with-roman-numerals-use-iiii-instead-of-iv
October 10, 2011 at 4:08 pm |
Interesting, thanks! I’m going to start noticing that on all the Roman Numeral clocks around the city.
October 10, 2011 at 10:28 pm |
I remember seeing somewhere that using the IIII instead of the usual IV was just an aesthetic decision, providing a kind of symmetry on the clock face. This way, you would have four hours containing only the variants of “I”, four hours with “V” and four hours with “X”.
October 11, 2011 at 2:18 pm |
A fascinating clock but an hardly informative entry. Is Barthman still in business? Are there Barthmans in NYC? There’s more to history than the New York Times.
November 12, 2011 at 4:28 am |
In 1947, the clock had Arabic numerals:
http://www.higherpictures.com/ImageViewer.aspx?id=1244&c=22
Barthman’s is still in business – they claim on their web site that the clock was “conceptualized” in 1899:
http://www.williambarthman.com/index.php?file=pages&page_id=Sidewalk_Clock
I’m guessing they have evidence that he drew a design in 1899, which still leaves the installation date in question. A “wooden” one seems extremely unlikely; much more likely would have been a mechanical clock that was wound from below (the glass rounds in the sidewalk are vault lights, indicating that there’s a workspace below.)
March 26, 2018 at 6:37 am |
[…] maybe we just need to refurbish the ones that already exist—like this lion and unicorn themed clock four stories up above the entrance to 84 William Street, […]
March 26, 2018 at 7:54 am |
[…] maybe we just need to refurbish the ones that already exist—like this lion and unicorn themed clock four stories up above the entrance to 84 William Street, […]
January 8, 2024 at 3:29 am |
[…] late 19th century in business districts thick with pedestrian traffic. (In one fanciful instance, the clock was embedded into the sidewalk itself on Broadway and Maiden […]