Artifacts, items of cultural or historical interest, are intended to counter the natural flow of…read moreforgetting. When I'm out and about I'm always looking around for artifacts. I wonder. What if it could speak? What would it tell me about itself? How has it been used? Where did it come from? How did it get to here? Whom did it belong to? It's a tale as old as time. For artifacts tell more about ourselves than our confessions.
My family and I were recently at Reno City Plaza, 10 N Virginia St, Reno, NV, former site of the now demolished historic Mapes Hotel. An artifact, a cool street clock, is there. I remember when it was previously located at Park Lane Mall where it was a popular place for all ages to meet up at or to just hang out at. A couple of my cousins report they had their first kiss under this clock while it was at Park Lane.
Park Lane Mall was not this clock's first home.
Starting in 1935, this Joseph Mayer 18-foot-tall, 5,180-pound clock, made by E. Howard Co., was located outside Russian immigrants Ginsburg Jewelry https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=163887 at 133 N. Virginia St. Reno, Nevada where it was known as the Ginsberg Clock. "Businesses, especially jewelers, were known to place these types of clocks outside their stores. There was at least one other street clock downtown in the 1940s, located in front of L.C. Griffin, Inc. Jewelers, just across Virginia Street from Ginsburg's. However, as the only street clock remaining in the area, the Ginsburg clock is the last surviving local resource and artifact of its kind."
Park Lane Mall, a popular cultural hub for a couple generations of Renoites, acquired it in 1967, painted it green, installed it, and incorporated it into their logo. I liked Park Lane Mall. It had a great selection of stores, supported many local causes held at the mall, held several national visits including a memorable Star Trek event, and was the place to walk for exercise during inclement weather. I always enjoyed watching horologist Brian Bullard, a Bachelors Degree graduate of California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo and 25 year owner of Timeless Enterprises, Inc. in Reno, Nevada, maintain this clock.
Sadly, Park Lane Mall closed in 2007. As an aside, many of we Veterans were so sad and disappointed and remain so that City of Reno didn't support the idea of expanding the very old and very small severely over-crowded existing Reno Veterans hospital to the Park Lane Mall location. To date, the Reno Veterans hospital remains very old and very small and very severely over-crowded. No surprise why Nevada has such a much higher rate of Veterans succumbing to suicide than the other states.
Private real estate investment company M&H Realty Partners LLC bought the 40-year-old mall from long-time owner The Macerich Co. They donated the clock to City of Reno who put it into storage.
Skip forward a few years to conversations between friends Bill Thornton (then co-owner of Club Cal Neva) and Tim Healion (then of Deux Gros Nez restaurant and now of Laughing Planet). They got to talking about this historic clock in storage and Healion mentioned he had a high school buddy -- Tom Erb -- who is a clock expert and owner of Electric Time Co. in Massachusetts.
Thornton and Healion decided to get the beloved old clock restored by Erb. Jeffery Siri, president and CEO of the Cal Neva and voluntary donations by devoted-to-history Cal Neva employees footed the bill. As part of Cal Neva's 50th birthday celebration, A Time For Peace, in 2012, it was presented to City of Reno, who dedicated it on 18 September 2013.
What makes this beloved historic preservation so special is that Cities of Reno and Sparks are not exactly good at preserving their history.
Noted architect Frederick DeLongchamps built some of Northern Nevada's best known and stately landmarks. He designed more than 500 buildings in the Silver State, including the State Capitol in Carson City, Second Judicial District Court in Reno, downtown Reno Post Office, Riverside Hotel (now Riverside Artist Lofts) and the former train depot, now the Depot Craft Brewery and Distillery, and the beautiful Mediterranean Revival architecture Immaculate Conception Church in Sparks, built in 1932, cruelly allowed to be demolished in 2022 although on the National Historic Register.
City of Reno just as cruelly allowed the demolition of in 2022, Reno's oldest, longest-standing commercial building, the old Masonic Lodge, which dated back to 1872, an elaborate, for that time, 3-story classic.
More cool history about this clock and the Ginsberg Family are at:
https://www.historicreno.org/media/custom/docs/FPv12n4.pdf
https://www.newsreview.com/reno/content/time-for-preservation/623443/
I rate it 3 stars. According to the Yelp ratings' definitions, 3 Stars is "Ok". That to me is an acceptable rating of something that does day in and day out what it is there to do. It is NOT a negative review.