A clock story

Milford – When other chimes ring in the new year Monday morning, the borough’s senior timepiece will celebrate in silence. Never fear, the clock will be working. Its bell was one of the few things not repaired when the Milford Enhancement Committee made it one of their first priorities after they organized in 1997. The idea of a large bell overhead striking the hours in the middle of the night wasn’t all that attractive said Stephen and his wife, Robbie Szabara, who live in the second-floor apartment below. The Szabaras have an antique and framing shop in the ground floor of Forest Hall. He doubles as the building’s caretaker, clock maintenance man and historian. It would be inconvenient any other way, since the winding staircase to the loft where the clock resides can only be reached through the apartment. The loft has its own history. When James Pinchot commissioned famed architect, Calvert Vaux to design the 1862 building, he wanted a place where artist friends, sculptors and painters would work. The name, Forest Hall, and its association with the Yale School of Forestry came later, after another famed architect, Richard Morris Hunt did the much larger addition along Broad Street. The artists did come; members of the so-called Hudson River School of painting including John F. Weir, Worthington Whittredge and Alfred Thompson are mentioned in a period, social page account of Pinchot’s summer home. Szabara displayed a portion of a packing crate, Weir addressed to a New York City gallery. They all worked around the clock, so to speak. Surrounded by the drive shafts that actually turn the hands on its two faces and pulley connections for the weights that power it, the oversized clock mechanism looks like a partially assembled engine on life support. In the early 1990’s,“it had all been carefully unconnected. It was intact, except for its bell, but not working,”Szabara recalled. The enhancement committee paid technicians at Broad Street’s, Clockworks to clean and reassemble it. The work cost $2,000, “and they did a good job,” Szabara said. No manufacturer’s name was ever found. Since then, Szabara has dutifully climbed up to wind the clock. He recalled seeing bills showing that the Pinchots once paid 10 cents to have the job done. It’s wound by pulling its weights back up, every four days. The weight cables stretch down through the walls of the shop below. “They used to go to the basement. Then it only had to be wound every week or so,” he added. Very little maintenance has been needed. “One of the hands fell off once, but I found it in the gutter,” he said. While the bell is gone, all attachments for it remain. Even lacking the bell, the Szabaras are aware of the clock as they sit in living room of their apartment. “It’s very soothing at night, like a heartbeat. And it’s different when the weather changes,” said Robbie Szabara. “I think barometric pressure has something to do with it.” For Stephen Szabara the clock winding chore has put a new aspect on time. Taking care of the clock, “makes you a lot more aware how fast time goes by.”