These Historic Clock Towers Kept Los Angeles in Time
In the city, time becomes visible.Lewis Mumford, Historian
With shorter days and darker afternoons, the end of daylight savings time provides an opportunity to highlight the clock towers of Los Angeles. In the mid-1800s, public clocks served as type of civic authority as they centralized the town's time while introducing the idea of organizing days around the hours and minutes of clock time. This time-keeping power was not only wielded by municipalities but also other institutions wanting to reflect authority, longevity and stability, such as railroads, newspapers, universities, churches and commercial enterprises. Today's smart phones and watches provide incredibly accurate detailed time, yet these towering time keepers serve as monuments to an age when the day's hours and minutes were once far from our finger tips.
According to Alexis McCrossen, author of "Marking Modern Times: A History of Clocks, Watches, and Other Timekeepers in American Life," the height of the public clock era in the U.S. took place between 1870 and 1930, a timeline that aligns well with the construction of our local region's public clocks. These early town clocks facilitated how Angelenos collectively carved out their days.
But let's take a step even farther back. Before public clocks, church bells kept time in the city. The bells of the Plaza Church and Missions San Gabriel and San Fernando made key times of the day audible. In the mission system, the bells not only marked morning, noon and night, but also the time to pray, eat and work for the Indigenous people forced into the mission system. In his book "Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913," Harris Newmark remembered the bells of the Plaza Church, "ringing at six in the morning and at eight in the evening" which "served as a curfew to regulate the daily activities of the town."
Los Angeles' first clock tower was located atop Market House, a brick structure constructed in 1858 by John Temple across from the Temple Block, now the site of City Hall. Shops sold their wares on the first floor, while acting troupes performed in the theater space on the second. A few years later, the second floor was used as city and county courtrooms and by 1871, the County of Los Angeles bought the building to serve as its courthouse. Thus, the building acquired the moniker — "Clocktower Courthouse."
Eleven-foot hands rotated around the four-faced clock that, according to Newmark, also had a "fine-toned and sonorous" bell.
However, like many others at the time, this first town clock was not the most reliable. Articles from the 1870s Los Angeles Herald complained that it was a "hopeless wreck." In 1872, the Los Angeles Daily Star called the building "a shaky old elephant" and suggested the juries couldn't deliberate for fear the clock tower would fall through the building. Newmark explained that the heavy rains of the early 1860s "played havoc with the tower" and that by 1861, the clock "set a pace for itself regardless of the rest of the universe."
According to the local newspapers, Angelenos were eager for a second, more reliable clock to be added to the new Los Angeles High School planned for Poundcake Hill (a.k.a. Telegraph Hill, now the site of the Clara Shortridge Foltz building). In September 1872, the Los Angeles Star opined about the need for a new town clock on the high school building:
"At present the town clock is not worth a dime to anyone but those in the immediate vicinity of the Court House; whereas, if one were placed on the building on Telegraph Hill, it could be distinctly seen from any portion of the city, and would be of some use to the poor devils who can't afford to carry a $300 watch, like us."
Los Angeles High School was built in 1873 with a three-faced public clock in its cupola that could be seen throughout the city.
In those early days of public clocks, local jewelers who sold clocks and pocket watches saw it as their civic duty to keep these monumental mechanical time pieces running smoothly. Though, in one instance, Los Angeles City Council did pay carpenter John G. Scott $10 a month to keep the Courthouse town clock running in 1874, even if the clock ran in "a kind of uncertain spasmodic way" (to quote an editorializing Los Angeles Herald). When he passed away, City Council minutes from that time note the various jewelers hired to take on the timekeeping job. One jeweler, Frederick Linde, capitalized on his role of City Time Regulator by painting "Frederick Linde, City Time" to the dial glass on the clocks he sold.
With all its faults, Los Angeles' first public clock from the 19th century has actually outlived most of the structures it once towered over. When the Clock Tower Courthouse was replaced with the 1892 Red Sandstone Courthouse in the early 1890s, the old clock faces were installed in this new county building. And when that courthouse came down in the 1930s, one clock face was donated to the Natural History Museum and was displayed in the museum's old California History room. It's uncertain what happened to two of the clock faces though they were most likely demolished with the rest of the structure. The fourth clock face was repurposed for the 1958 Stanley Mosk Courthouse where it continues to mark time for the Los Angeles Civic Center, as it has been for the last 160 years.
Here are a few other structures that have helped make time visible in the city:
Eastern Columbia Building
Perhaps one of the most beautiful clock towers stands 243 feet above Broadway on the 1930 Eastern Columbia Building designed by Claud Beelman. According to the Los Angeles Times (1930), the "telethon electric clock" was the largest on the Pacific Coast. The white clock-face set against the blue and gold terra cotta tiles proves this 1930 advertisement prophetic when it boasted that "Eastern's giant clock will soon be a Los Angeles landmark." This landmark has seen significant screen time including a cameo in the 1980s pilot for detective show "Moonlighting" with Cybil Shepard and Bruce Willis.
Tower Theatre Building
As part of downtown's historic Broadway Theatre District, the Tower Theatre opened in October 1927 as the first downtown theatre wired for sound. Instead of numbers, the clock hands rotate around the words "TOWER THEATRE." The ornate Art Deco clock tower was partially restored —along with the rest of this historic landmark designed by S. Charles Lee — when the space reopened in 2021 as an Apple store.
Farmer's Market Clock Tower
One of the city's more famous clock towers overlooks the Original Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax. In the market's early days, a windmill with the Farmers Market sign presided over the shoppers. The current clock tower was added in the early 1950s and easily became the key meeting spot as visitors commented "Meet me at the clock tower."
Holmby Building in Westwood
Built in 1929, this Los Angeles landmark is part of the original Westwood development established by the Janss Corporation. The Holmby Building's pinnacled tower with four clock faces still overlooks the intersection of Weyburn Avenue and Westwood Boulevard. Built by Gordon Kaufmann, the Spanish Revival building's second floor served as the first women's dormitory in UCLA in the structure's early days. In 2003, the clock and roof had to be reconstructed after a fire.
Santa Monica's Clock Tower Building
Designed by Walker & Eisen between 1929, this Art Deco gem is capped with a four-faced terra cotta clock. For 40 years, this high-rise built by Bay Cities Guaranty and Loan Association was the tallest in Santa Monica. The building opened in 1930, just as the company collapsed due to the 1929 stock market crash. At the time of this article, the clock tower is under wraps as its being refurbished.
San Pedro Municipal Ferry Building
Clock towers are a common sight at transportation hubs and that includes the old San Pedro Municipal Ferry Building, now the Los Angeles Maritime Museum. From 1941 to 1963, this Streamline Moderne building housed the ticket booth and waiting rooms for the ferry that transported folks between San Pedro and Terminal Island. The original 12-foot clock was installed in January 1942. The backend of the clock is new but the clock face with its wooden arms is original. The building became the Maritime Museum in 1980 and a national landmark in 1996.
Newhall Metrolink Stop
One of the relatively newer clock towers in Los Angeles County stands at the northwest edge of the county border in Newhall. Named for a respected Santa Clarita Valley civic leader, the Jan Heidt Metrolink Station opened along the Antelope Valley Line on March 18, 2000. The clock tower also houses the Saugus Elementary School bell from the early 1900s and a time capsule. Hopefully, the clock will still be ticking when Newhall residents recover the time capsule, set to be opened in 2050.
Los Angeles Union Station
Considered the county's last great railway station, Union Station is topped by a 125-foot Moorish clock tower. The clocks inside this Art Deco landmark — located in the ticket concourse and in the waiting area — are also worth highlighting. As an homage to timepieces past, a sundial installed by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce also stands in the walkway in front of this historic transit hub.
El Monte Bus Station
Standing at the entrance of the El Monte Bus Station is "Time Piece," a 2012 public art sculpture by Donald Lipski that honors those clock towers that have long been built at transit hubs, The clocks facing the parking lot feature Metro's logo, while the clocks facing the station show El Monte's city seal. As Lipski explains in his artist statement, "Besides the utilitarian function of seeing the time, a clock tower establishes a focus, a sense of place. The very idea of a public clock speaks to history, stability, tradition and community."
