A New York minute wouldn’t be possible without the city clock master himself, Marvin Schneider. The 85-year-old Brooklynite has held the role of NYC’s clock master since the 90s. However, it all started with the inactive Clock Tower Building in the 1970s. Schneider restored the clock that had been dormant for two decades and what began as volunteer work, eventually grew into a mastered profession.
So what does a clock master really do? Schneider does everything from maintenance, preservation efforts, historical advocacy, and what’s surely on the forefront of his mind right now, daylight saving adjustments.
As daylight saving approaches on Sunday, March 9th, granting New Yorkers more than 80 minutes of daylight this month, Schneider will be responsible to hand-tune all the clocks at City Hall one hour ahead. Even when we go back an hour in the fall, Schneider is careful to only move the clocks forward (by 11 hours to be exact) so as not to damage the mechanisms.
Overall, Schneider maintains about 12 of NYC’s publicly-owned clocks. His particular favorite being 346 Broadway, an NYC landmarked building, or so he told Save America’s Clocks.
Clock mastery has become somewhat of a forgotten role, but Schneider plans to keep the tradition alive in NYC with his 74-year-old apprentice, Forest Markowitz.
People need public clocks, Schneider once claimed. Moreover, they’re a staple of architectural and cultural identity for a city. “What does it say to community not to have your clock working?” he asked in the conversation with Save America’s Clocks.
So when you’re laying in bed this Sunday, waking up to your phone clock automatically adjusted for you, just know that you can think NYC’s clock master for ensuring NYC’s public clocks stay on time.