I should really save this one for a Chambers Street page, since I recently walked the lower Manhattan route while aiming for the Brooklyn Bridge, whose pedestrian path has finally been freed from bicyclists, who now have a couple of traffic lanes. It’s now rare to see a classic NYC street clock either on the sidewalk or mounted on a building. It’s even rarer to see a wall-mounted clock that’s still working, as The Sun Clock does at #278 Broadway at the NE corner of Chambers.
The green copper clock is mounted on a former department store and newspaper headquarters. The massive structure was built in 1846 for Scottish department store magnate A.T. Stewart, whose dry goods emporium was located in the building. From 1919 to 1950 it was home to The New York Sun newspaper, famed for its “Yes, Virginia” editorial and for the 1835 Great Moon Hoax.
The newspaper’s 1919 copper-faced clocks are still in place on the corners of Broadway and Chambers and Reade with its motto, The Sun Shines for All. The Sun had a shortlived revival on newsstands in the 1990s, but remains as an online entity. In fact, Francis Morrone, who is now the city’s preeminent architecture expert gave Forgotten New York The Book a stellar review in The Sun.
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12/8/21