General Services Department
Public Information Office
Published in Houston Chronicle
March 28, 2011
By: Chris Moran
Time Stands Still At Houston City Hall
After Years Of Inaccuracy, Clocks To Soon Be On Time
Mark Humphrey lowers parts to co-
worker Luis Espinosa on Monday as
they update one of City Hall's clocks.
The new hands have LED lights and
the clocks are getting new internal
workings. Photo © Cody Duty,
Houston Chronicle.
Houston City Hall can be its own universe, so much so that in recent weeks time itself nearly stopped at the art deco building on Bagby.
The clocks on the four faces atop the 11th-story friezes have been losing minutes every day for years. The fix involves replacing the hands, and that has meant three faces without hands (the fourth was fixed last year).
It was not meant to send a message that the city can only afford sundials during this time of municipal austerity. It only meant the new hands hadn't arrived from the company in Massachusetts that sold the city the clocks for the original 1938 construction of City Hall.
"That starts to looks bad when you pass City Hall when you see three sides and none of them are the same," joked Mike Isermann, division manager in the city General Services Department.
After a couple of years of sending workers up to reset the clocks as often as he could spare the manpower, Isermann said the city is spending about $120,000 for new hands and the internal mechanisms that will keep them running on time.
On Monday, an employee of Neon Electric stepped off the roof of City Hall and rappelled down a clock face. A co-worker lowered an 8-foot minute hand and a 5-foot hour hand to him.
They repeated it on the two other sides, installing the hands pointing straight up. There they stayed at quitting time. The work is expected to be finished later this week.
So, at the moment, you can be excused if you think it's permanently midnight at City Hall.
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