MIDDLETOWN—The King Street project is a little ahead, but the newly installed clock next to Something Sweet is right on time.
Clocksmith Bruce Harkness from Massachusetts came to fine tune what he calls a replica of a Seth Thomas or Howard Miller clock, which was put in the park next to Something Sweet on April 13 as part of the King Street project.
He is not only setting the time of the clock but programming it with music as well.
“It plays songs on what would be a rack of bells,” he said. “They‘ll be seasonal, they’ll be topical, patriotic … more than likely they'll have songs play randomly throughout the day.”
He said there will be a song on the hour as well, and in the event of a power outage or time change, the clock is self-correcting.
“It really should be self-sufficient once we engage it,” Harkness said.
The clock was going to be put on King Street, but the Middletown City Council voted March 1 to move it to the park because it gave it more visibility, Mayor Joseph DeStefano said.
It also puts it closer to the clock’s sponsors, Anna and Dave Madden, who own Something Sweet. They are the organizers of Run 4 Downtown, which this year is a 4-mile run/walk on Aug. 20, and donated $26,000 from the race’s proceeds to buy the clock.
King Street Project
The clock installation was on hold waiting for the clocksmith, who covers the whole New England area, to come, and with that out of the way, the rest of King Street will be repaved, and the benches, plants, and bike racks put in.
Already the sidewalks, trees, bollards, and one of the three crosswalks have been put in.
Another two stamped blacktop crosswalks will be put in, one that crosses King Street on the North Street side and another that crosses King Street on the Center Street side, and the repaving they are planning to do will extend all the way from North Street to James Street.
“By the end of April, it will be all done,” said Anthony Monaco, whose company, Tony Monaco Landscaping, Inc. is doing the construction.
He said they thought they were going to be starting to work on the project now, but because of the mild winter, they are far ahead of schedule.
“It’s exciting, I’m happy for Middletown,” Monaco said. “ Once the pavement goes down on that road, it will look like a million dollars.”
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