Jan 7, 2009 10:44 pm US/Central
Tick, Tock: Macy's Historic Clocks Get Updated
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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The iconic green clocks outside of Macy's are getting updated for a new century.
CBS
Over the years, they've taken a lickin' and kept on tickin'. Now those iconic green clocks outside the store we now call Macy's are getting an update for a new century. CBS 2's Vince Gerasole reports with an inside look.
What gets this timely piece moving about the two clocks that have graced Macy's Marshall Field's building as far back as 1887 requires a journey inside the glittering store and deep into the industrial depths of the complex. There we came face to face with their extra parts and the caretaker of their legacy - electrician Jacque Lamarre.
"People always talk about them and they call us whenever we have a little difference of time, we receive call after call," Lamarre said.
Lately the nearly eight-ton bronze time pieces have been running a little too slow for those passing by.
"When they call, they complain about two minutes, three minutes," Lamarre said. "Some people say they are late for work."
For years every clock at the store, and there are many, has been connected to a master chronometer in the basement's time control center - but the outside clocks that rely on aging mechanical gears were falling behind.
The fix for Macy's has Lamarre venturing inside the iconic clocks, practically gutting the whole mechanical system, and replacing each with a new electrical one.
"Inside the clock, I can stand and never be able to reach the ceiling, it's so high, you have plenty of room to work," Lamarre said.
Moving the historic minute and hour hands now comes courtesy of a GPS satellite hook-up.
"The system is so advanced that the error would be about a minute every six months," Lamarre said.
The clocks have been Chicago symbols for 112 years, whether captured by local artists, honored by fans on Web sites or famously gracing the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1945 thanks to painter Norman Rockwell - something their caretaker keeps in mind with each passing second.
"You are dealing and seeing and touching history every day," Lamarre said.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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