Jamaica Avenue, Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York, United States

One of the most important and essential parts of New York's historical fabric is its "street furniture" — lamp posts, street clocks, sign posts, and benches that enhance and maintain the intimacy and scale of neighborhood blocks. Perhaps the most striking of these street amenities are the oversize cast-iron post or sidewalk clocks that proudly dominate city sidewalks. These clocks proliferated in American cities well after the turn of the twentieth century but many have since fallen prey to automobile accidents and sidewalk ordinances. One of the few that existing New York today is the clock at No. 161-11 Jamaica Avenue.

Introduced in the 1860s, cast-iron street clocks were popular both as everyday conveniences and as novel advertising devices. A small business concern that stayed in the same location year after year would buy a street clock and install it directly in front of the store, often painting the name of the business onto the clock face. When the business owners moved, they usually took their clocks with them.

Readily available from catalogues for about 600 dollars, street clocks were manufactured by several clock ,companies. At the forefront in the East were the Seth Thomas Company and the E. Howard Clock Company. Seth Thomas (1785-1859), who established the Seth Thomas Clock Company in 1861, was one of America's pioneer clock manufacturers. Edward Howard (1813-1904), who founded the E. Howard Clock & Watch Company in 1861, developed an extremely successful clock business in Massachusetts, with a New York office located at 532 Broadway. Howard with his partner Aaron L. Dennison created the first mass-produced pocket watch, and marketed banjo clocks, figure eight clocks, grandfather, wall, and tower clocks, all of his own design.

The E. Howard Clock Company, which manufactured the clocks at No. 1501 Third Avenue and No. 783 Fifth Avenue, produced sidewalk clocks as late as 1964. The company started to manufacture the street clocks around 1870 and at one time had a patent on them. Street clocks were operated by a mechanism based on a •?ight calculated according to the number of feet needed for its fall. The weight as wound up into its highest position and would run for about eight days.

Later the clocks were mechanized and operated from master clocks inside the building, and had secondary movements. Measuring about fifteen feet from the sidewalk to the center of the dial, the clocks were larger than human scale, handsome eye-catchers, and effective advertising devices. Designed with two or four faces, the clocks conformed to a basic composition, with the large round faces mounted on classical columns and bases.

Three of New York's clocks are located in Queens. The No. 161-11 Jamaica Avenue clock in Queens, thought to have been installed by Busch's Jewelers, is a typical double-faced sidewalk clock with paneled base, fluted column post, and a splendid crowning acroteria motif.

The words "Tad's Steaks" have been added in neon. These handsome cast-iron street clocks of New York represent an increasingly rare sampling of a type of street amenity that once proliferated. They are, in most cases, masterpieces of cast-iron workmanship, beautifully designed, and prominent sidewalk landmarks. As an essential part of the city's urban fabric, they make a very special and significant contribution to the New York streetscape.

- From the 1981 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Submitted for June's THC # 1 - Are you supposed to sit on that?

Some would consider it bad manners to sit upon someone's gravestone.

Taken during our Scoundrels, scamps, & Scalliwags tour at Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse, NY. You would not believe the terrain we had to cross to get to this. I felt like I was hiking through unchartered territory in the Adirondacks Mountains. By the time we got there the group had to take a rest since it was so hot. This is one ofthe group members resting on Milton Price's Monument.

Milton Price, known as the Merchant Prince.was a very colorful Character in Syracuse, NY's History. He had a way of advertising his business like no other man. He was a merchant of dry goods, carpets, & furniture on South Salina Street during teh late 1800's. Milton's way of advertising could be described as a bit brash. He would walk the streets of Syracuse looking for men who wore top hats. He would find them and then take his cane and smash the hats on the man's head making the hat unwearable. He would then give the man $10.00 and tell him to go buy another one. When he walked along the Erie Canal he would literally throw children in the canal. he would go in and get them and then give the parents money and tell them to go buy the child a new outfit. This is how he got his name around. People do then like they do now and they would talk about "What Milton Price did" If someone asked who Milton Price happened to be they would tell them. This was Milton's way of getting his name around and talked about. Apparently it must have worked or he wouldn't have wound up with the nickname of The Merchant Prince.

Submitted for July's TMSH # 7 - Somebody Relaxing