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Recent Media Coverage of
NAWCC Chapter 154 - Daytona Beach, Florida
Chapter 154 has been "In The News" several times in recent months.
Following are the news articles about, or mentioning, Chapter 154:
Coquina Clock Tower - Clock Modernization
and Restart Project -
Ribbon Cutting Celebration Ceremony
(Tuesday, August 12, 2008)
by Randy Jaye / August
12, 2008
The City of Daytona Beach organized and presented a Clock Modernization and
Restart Project Celebration Ceremony
for the Coquina Clock Tower on Tuesday, August 12, 2008. Two National Association
of Watch and Clock Collectors (NAWCC) Chapter 154
members, Jim Zeisler and Tom Bransford, were recognized for their contributions
for preserving the Clock Tower, and were presented with plaques of recognition.
Many Daytona Beach elected officials and city workers were present. The ceremony
coincided with the Coquina Clock Tower's 70th Anniversary (the Clock Tower was
originally dedicated on July 4, 1938 after it was constructed by a two year-long
Work Projects Administration (WPA) project that included Oceanfront Park, the
Band Shell and surrounding promenade.)
The program included the Presentation of Colors by the Daytona Beach Color
Guard, the singing of the National Anthem by Wilbur Williams, an Invocation by
the Sr. Pastor of the 1st Baptist Church of Daytona Beach, Tim Mann, a Welcome,
Introduction and Comments by Daytona Beach's Mayor, Glenn Ritchey, the Clock
Modernization Project Highlights by Deputy Leisure Services Director, Lynn
Parfitt, details of the Modernization Project by NAWCC Chapter 154 member, Jim
Zeisler, the Recognition and Presentation of plaques of recognition to Jim
Zeisler and Tom Bransford by Zone 3 Commissioner, Sheila K. Mc-Kay Vaughan, and
a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony by the elected officials of Daytona Beach and all of
the NAWCC Chapter 154 members that were in attendance.
NAWCC Chapter 154 members Jim Zeisler and Tom Bransford have been actively
involved with this clock modernization project for more than two years. The
project included the replacement of the clock motor, new electrical wiring, a
new custom-made motor seat and new hour and minute hands for all four dials. The
time on the dials can now be automatically reset without climbing up into the
tower and manually resetting the hands.
Several Daytona Beach City officials stated that the Coquina Clock Tower
is one of three major historical sites in the city and they want to insure it is
preserved for future generations to enjoy. Daytona Beach's Leisure Services
Director, Percy Williamson said, "The clock tower is the place where tourists
want to take pictures, and have their picture taken, and is a place where many
locals want to have wedding ceremonies and have wedding pictures taken." Daytona
Beach officials also said the Clock Tower will continue to
receive attention and near future preservation projects include replacement of
missing coquina rock and the replacement of the American Bald Eagle topped
weather vane that went missing sometime around 1977.
Although the Clock Tower is now dwarfed by modern concrete and glass hotels
and condos it remains head and shoulders above all of its neighbors in class,
style and workmanship. This celebration proved that the city of Daytona Beach is
proud of its one-of-a-kind Clock Tower and will invest in preserving it for
years to come.
Daytona Beach Color Guard (opening the
ceremony). |
Daytona Beach's Mayor, Glenn Ritchey, giving
an opening speech. |
NAWCC - Chapter 154 member, Jim Zeisler, giving
a speech regarding the clock modernization project. |
Zone 3 Commissioner, Sheila K. Mc-Kay Vaughan,
presenting Tom Bransford and Jim Zeisler plaques of recognization (Mayor
Glenn Ritchey seated on the right). |
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Faces in the crowd: Eddie and Rita Epp, Linda
Manley (center). |
Ribbon Cutting event (NAWCC - Chapter 154
members and Daytona Beach elected officials.) |
Old clock motor and hands (to be restored
and placed in a Daytona Beach museum.) |
Plaque presented to Tom Bransford. |
Florida FLASHBACK YOUR TIME History
Old boardwalk helped ease hard times with gritty fun
Joy Wallace Dickinson | Florida Flashback
- August 10, 2008
The
CBS television program Sunday Morning recently ran a segment
looking back on the amusement parks in Coney Island, where the
world's first roller coaster rolled on the dunes in 1884.
For decades the words Coney Island meant summer for New Yorkers,
and mass amusement parks with rides got their start there,
historian Barry Lewis said on the show -- which got me thinking
about our area's historic version, the boardwalk at Daytona
Beach.
Corn dogs and Coppertone
As a redevelopment project goes on in Daytona Beach, only a
sliver of the old boardwalk remains.
But along with the smell of corn dogs and
stale beer and Coppertone suntan lotion, it's enough to spark
memories of bumper cars, Ferris wheel rides, games such as skee
ball in dark arcades with worn terrazzo floors and gaudy
fluorescent lights and cruising through the nearby Steak 'n
Shake (gone for years).
Perhaps the dilemma of some of our older working-class beach
resorts is that attempts to refine the atmosphere go against the
grain of their nature.
The Coney Island parks in their heyday were gritty, grimy,
unrefined and unruly, to quote the folks on Sunday Morning, with
a "wonderful sense that anything could happen" in the sunny
freedom by the sea.
Here are some tidbits about the past of the boardwalk area at
the "World's Most Famous Beach."
Casino over the waves
A pier has reached into the Atlantic at Main Street for more
than a century, according to Daytona Beach News-Journal
archives.
The first one, built in 1900, burned and was rebuilt in 1919.
T.J. Wright bought it in 1924 for $27,000 and made it over into
a 1,000-foot-long, $250,000 pier and "casino" that debuted June
11, 1925, with a ballroom that could hold 2,000 dancers.
Longtime residents can recall dances there during World War II
blackouts; they found their way out to the casino in the
moonlight.
Several historic "casinos" dotted Florida's coast, by the way.
The name didn't mean gambling (at least not publicly), but
instead was used for dance halls and sites of social gatherings.
The "casino" building at Daytona Beach may be the only remaining
Victorian-style pier structure on the U.S. East Coast. Its
survival and repair remain the subject of public debate in the
city.
Sturdy landmarks made of shells
On the National Register of Historic Places since 1999, the
Daytona Beach Bandshell and Oceanfront Park Complex dates from
the 1930s' Works Progress Administration, one of the federal New
Deal programs designed to stimulate the economy during the Great
Depression.
Construction began in September 1936 and continued into 1938,
but the bandshell was sufficiently ready for a grand opening
July 4, 1937, that drew a record crowd of 25,000 to the city for
motorcycle races on the beach, a baseball game, a parade and a
beachside concert (see bandshell.org).
The coquina clock tower, built at the same time as the bandshell,
features four distinctive dials that bear the 12 letters of the
city's name, Daytona Beach, instead of numerals.
Restoration of the clock has been an ongoing project of the
Daytona Beach chapter of the National Association of Watch and
Clock Collectors, which also has a super Web site about the
tower and the whole WPA coquina boardwalk complex
(nawcc154-daytonabeach.com).
As the group's Web site explains, coquina rock, found all
along Florida's Atlantic shore, consists of mixed shell
fragments and quartz grains held together by calcium carbonate
and formed when higher sea levels covered the present-day
coastline.
Coquina is soft and easy to cut in the ground but hardens after
being exposed to the open air. It has been a Florida building
material for more than 400 years.
Joy Wallace Dickinson can be reached at jdickinson@orlandosentinel.com
or 407-420-6082 , or by good
old-fashioned letter at the Orlando Sentinel, 633 N. Orange
Ave., Orlando, FL 32801.
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Chapter 154 - In the
News - May 26, 2008
 LOCAL
NEWS -
DeLand
retiree keeps busy with quirky clockwork
Staff Writer
DELAND -- "Retirement is hell," reads a sign on a
shelf in a small outbuilding behind Tom Bransford's
103-year-old home.
News-Journal/PETER BAUER
Tom
Bransford tinkers with a Atmos
timepiece in his DeLand shop
recently. Bransford, a war veteran,
is a master clock repairman and
spends most of his day tinkering
with the old and unique timekeepers.
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It's a little clock workshop -- crowded with
hundreds of chiming, ticking, bim-bamming
timekeepers, from cuckoos to grandfather clocks to
French imported wall dials -- where Bransford, 77,
spends most of his waking hours.
The former career Army pilot and retired
supervisor from the Boise Cascade manufacturing
company who then taught a vocational clock repair
class for 21 years, is most happy there.
His favorites: the Atmos clocks, some worth as
much as $40,000.
An Atmos is perpetual -- doesn't need winding,
but runs by a hermetically sealed capsule filled
with ethyl chloride (gas and liquid) which expands
and contracts with temperature change, Bransford
explained.
"They shipped one from Anchorage, Alaska, that
just came in -- which makes 14 here now to be
fixed," he said. "I have six from individuals in New
Orleans that were presentation clocks. They were
underwater in Katrina. They are government clocks."
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Big Ben, the famed bell tower at
Britain's House of Parliament, has chimed
through freezing winters, fierce storms and
World War II bombing raids.
· The neo-gothic clock
tower is popularly known as Big Ben, though
the name actually refers only to the 13.5
ton bell inside.
· The bell has been
silenced for repairs only four times -- in
1934, 1956, 1990 and 2007. However, the
clock has briefly stopped by accident over
the years due to weather, workmen and even
birds.
· The massive bell,
currently marking its 150th anniversary, was
cast in 1858 and first chimed in July 1859.
Soon after, the bell cracked and was rotated
so that the hammer wouldn't strike the
crack. That same bell, crack and all,
remains in use today.
— Compiled by News
Researcher Janice Cahill |
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SOURCE: News-Journal
research |
The West Virginia native, who doesn't need much
sleep, said the clock obsession didn't begin when he
was serving four years in Germany during a military
career that began in 1953. Although he did buy many
clocks while living there.
He served in Korea after the major conflict there
in the early 1950s and fulfilled two tours in the
Vietnam War before retiring in 1973. His last
military assignment was at the U.S. Army Training
Device Center in Orlando, where he settled after
retirement and took a job with Boise Cascade through
1979.
That's where he was involved with fixing one of
the world's most remarkable timepieces: England's
Big Ben. Boise Cascade was one of only a few
companies with a lathe large enough to create an
8-foot and 12-inch-by-12-inch slide replacement part
for Big Ben, Bransford said.
"I watched while it was made and put the part on
the plane," Bransford said.
While in Orlando, Bransford took a clock-repair
class at a vocational school in Winter Park so he
could fix some of the clocks he bought in Germany.
His interest became so intense that from 1978
through 1999, he taught the class. Then he tried to
retire again.
"I came out to DeLand and bought this old house,
which nobody had lived in for 26 years," Bransford
said. "It was really run down. I said all I wanted
to do was fix one clock a day and work on the
house."
Instead, he fixes six or seven clocks a day --
seven days a week, and that's only the tip of his
mountain of work.
He works on the house occasionally and, in his
free moments, Bransford has been working out daily
at the YMCA since 2001, when he lost 105 pounds
after his quintuple bypass.
"I do take time off to fix the sprinklers, and I
have a son, Bruce, who comes out and helps me when I
have to take a day off to work in the yard,"
Bransford said one recent afternoon.
Recently he took time off from his pressing tasks
to work with his friends Jim Zeisler, 66, a retired
firefighter and clock enthusiast, and Randy Jaye of
Orlando, president of the National Association of
Watch and Clock Collectors of Daytona Beach.
The three took part in a public-clock repair
project, fixing the timepiece in the coquina tower
on the Boardwalk behind the Hilton Hotel.
"The idea was hatched three years ago, and it
took this long to come to fruition," Zeisler said.
While Jaye organized the effort and Zeisler rode
the lift-bucket to work on the clock, Bransford did
much of the behind-the-scene preparation.
"Tom called and sent all kinds of pictures and
information on the restorations he was going to do
on the clock," said Rosie Karg, a spokeswoman for
American Time and Signal. "The system was ancient
and now everything is more compact. He had a lot of
work to do to refit the new pieces to work within
the tower."
But it turns out there's a glitch, which the
association members hope to resolve on Tuesday with
the help of American Time and Signal.
The clock hands are a fraction too long and must
lean out to clear the tower. The tip of the hands on
the clock will be shaved slightly to correct the
problem.
Fixing the problem will take "patience and a good
mechanical mind," he said.
audrey.parente@news-jrnl.com
Video made by the Daytona
Beach News-Journal: "Clock Shop" featuring
Chapter 154 member: Tom Bransford
Click on the following link:
"Clock
Shop" Video - Tom Bransford - Daytona Beach
News-Journal - May 2008
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Chapter 154 - In the
News - April 14, 2008
News-Journal/Nigel Cook
Hobbyist Jim Zeisler of Daytona Beach, left, and expert clockmaker
Tom Bransford of Deland hold replacement hands for the clock tower on
the Boardwalk. The hands are just a bit too long and Bransford is
working on the problem.
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Saving the sands of time
Staff Writer
"Retirement is hell," reads a sign in a small home business run by a
spunky DeLand retiree. One might say Tom Bransford has too much time on
his hands; but not for a lack of something to do. Just the opposite. The
77-year old former career Army pilot who also retired from the Boise
Cascade manufacturing company, and then taught a vocational clock repair
class for 21 years - fixes six or seven clocks a day. Seven days a week.
"I do take time off to fix the sprinklers, and I have a son, Bruce, who
comes out and helps me when I have to take a day off to work in the
yard," Bransford said during an interview in the clock-crowded shop
behind his historic 103-year old house -- also an on-going fixer-upper
project in his life.
In his free moments, Bransford has been working out at the YMCA since
2001, when he lost 105 pounds after his quintuple bypass.
The West Virginia native, who doesn't need much sleep, said the clock
obsession didn't begin when he was serving four years in Germany during
a military career that began in 1953. Although he did buy many clocks
while over there. He served in Korea after the major conflict there in
the early 1950s and fulfilled two tours in the Vietnam War before
retiring in 1973. His last military assignment was at the U.S. Army
Training Device Center in Orlando, where he settled after retirement and
took a job with Boise Cascade through 1979. While in Orlando, Bransford
took a clock-repair class at a vocational school in Winter Park so he
could fix some of the clocks he bought in Germany. His interest became
so intense that from 1978 through 1999, he taught the class. Then he
tried to retire again. "I came out to DeLand and bought this old house,
which nobody had lived in for 26 years," Bransford said. "It was really
run down. I said all I wanted to do was fix one clock a day and work on
the house."
But clocks poured in and he found it hard to say no -- hence a shop
crowded with hundreds of chiming, ticking, bim-bamming time-keepers,
from cuckoos to grandfather clocks to French imported wall clocks. His
favorites: the Atmos clocks, some worth as much as $40,000. An Atmos is
perpetual -- doesn't need winding, but runs by a hermetically sealed
capsule filled with ethyl chloride (gas and liquid) which expands and
contracts with temperature change. "They shipped one from Anchorage,
Alaska, that just came in -- which makes 14 here now to be fixed,"
Bransford said. "I have six from individuals in New Orleans that were
underwater in Katrina. They are government clocks."
Probably one of the most remarkable timepieces Bransford was
connected with fixing: Big Ben. He was working at Boise Cascade -- one
of only a few companies with a lathe large enough to create an 8-foot
and 12-inch by 12-inch slide -- when the replacement part for Big Ben
was made and shipped to England. "I watched while it was made and put
the part on the plane," Bransford said.
Recently Bransford took a much bigger part of a public clock repair
project -- as a volunteer -- fixing the clock in the coquina clock tower
behind the Hilton Hotel. The landmark once dominated the World's Most
Famous Beach as part of a Works Progress Administration creation
constructed in 1936. The WPA created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt,
was a New Deal agency that employed millions of Americans affected by
the Great Depression. The early construction included a promenade,
arcade booths and a band shell and the towering clock, visible above
most everything else in the area. Most of the WPA construction was
demolished in favor of new development in the late 1970s.
"Bird droppings and salt corrosion had ruined the clock, the dials,
and it wasn't running," said Randy Jaye of Orlando, president of the
National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors of Daytona Beach.
Kathleen Oprian, spokesman for Bird-X Inc. of Chicago, a manufacturer
of bird deterrent products, said it's no surprise that bird poop stopped
the clock, since "bird droppings are extremely corrosive." To help solve
the problem city workers built a new stainless steel mount in the tower,
and Jaye, Bransford and Jim Zeisler of Daytona Beach worked with the
city to replace parts to retrofit the historic clock. Bransford acquired
new motors, hands and other parts from the American Time and Signal Co.
of Minnesota, using his own account to get a discount, which brought the
project in at about half the initial $5,000 budget. "Tom called and sent
all kinds of pictures and information on the restorations he was going
to do on the clock,' said Rosie Karg, a spokeswoman for American Time
and Signal. "The system was ancient and now everything is more compact.
He had a lot of work to do to refit the new pieces to work with the
tower."
"I am so darned glad it's over," said Zeisler, 66, a retired
firefighter from Columbus, Ohio. "The idea was hatched three years ago,
and it took this long to come to fruition."
But it turns out there's a glitch which the association members hope
to resolve with the help of American Time and Signal. The hands are a
fraction too long and must lean out to clear the tower. "You can't just
cut them off because they have to be counterbalanced," said Bransford.
Fixing the problem with take "patience and a good mechanical mind," he
said. He's working on the problem -- and will take care of it when he
has a little more time on his hands.
Note: On Tuesday, May 27, 2008 the
city of Daytona Beach brought a bucket lift truck to the coquina Clock
Tower and lifted Jim Zeisler to remove the minute hands on all four
dials. Tom Bransford cut and shaved the ends of the minute hands, and
then Jim Zeisler re-attached the hands on all four dials. Now all four
clocks are running smoothly and keeping synchronized time.
--Randy Jaye--
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News-Journal/Nigel Cook
At left is a file photo of the clock tower as it looked in 1976,
before it was dwarfed by hotels and condos. At right is a current photo
showing the clock tower and some of its environs. |
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Chapter 154 - In the
News - March 22, 2008
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LOCAL
NEWS -
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N-J |
Nigel Cook
Local clock expert Jim Zeisler places new hands on the
clock tower Friday on the boardwalk in Daytona Beach.
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Staff Writer
DAYTONA BEACH -- A coquina clock
tower, once the dominant landmark on the World's Most Famous
Beach, has been in serious need of a makeover.
But
with a $5,000 commitment from the city, volunteer clock experts
replaced the 70-year-old timepiece Friday.
"Bird
droppings and salt corrosion had ruined the clock, the dials,
and it wasn't running," said Randy Jaye of Orlando, president of
The National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors of
Daytona Beach.
Jaye
said Tom Bransford, a nationally recognized watchmaker from
DeLand who once worked on London's Big Ben, removed the clock
motor in January.
Bransford said the old motor might be refurbished and placed in
the Halifax Historical Society Museum but wasn't sure. City
offices were closed Friday.
Bransford acquired new motors, hands and other parts from the
American Time and Signal Co. of Minnesota, using his own account
to get a discount, which brought the project in at about half
the budget.
City
workers built a new stainless steel mount for the clock in the
tower, which was part of a 1936 Work Progress Administration
creation. The WPA, created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt,
was a New Deal agency that employed millions of Americans
affected by the Great Depression.
The
early construction included a promenade, arcade booths and a
band shell, but most of the construction was demolished in favor
of new development in the late 1970s. The clock tower --
officially dedicated in 1938 -- was preserved, along with the
band shell.
In
1980, the local clock association rescued the clock, which had
clogged up from bird droppings. A rededication occurred in 1989.
In
1999, the structure was listed with the National Register of
Historic Places.
Clock
expert Jim Zeisler of Daytona Beach joined Bransford and Jaye in
the most recent restoration project.
"I am
so darned glad it's over," Zeisler said. "The idea was hatched
three years ago, and it took this long to come to fruition."
Jaye
said the clock restoration is not the end of the makeover.
Additional work on the tower by the city will include draining
and restoring the fountain and installing two ventilation vents
to circulate air around the new clock motors.
But a
key change must be continuing maintenance and keeping pigeons
and other birds out of the Clock Tower and away from the
clockworks, Jaye said.
"It
looks great," Bransford said. "And this time it should last
forever."
audrey.parente@news-jrnl.com
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Press Releases
These are the press releases we've issued
recently.
- April 28, 2006 - Chapter 154 of the National Association of Watch
and Clock Collectors established a web presence. This web site will offer a
wide variety of horological information and preserve Chapter 154 historical
information as well.
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