This New England

You've written about one of my pet peeves: Public clocks broken and not fixed. Every time I visit my hometown, Easthampton, Massachusetts, I look up at the clock on the steeple of my old church, The First Congregational. It's across the street from the house I grew up in. The bells used to ring all night. On the hour. I got used to it. Now the bells are silenced, and the clock stopped years ago. I'm having trouble getting used to this.

And when I was a cub reporter whose beat was the district court in Holyoke, Mass. ( Arson Capital of America circa 1978 ) I noticed that the courtroom clock, which had done time there for years, had stopped. I can't remember where the hands were pointing. What I do recall is that I used the stopped clock in a lead graf in a story how justice gets stalled.

I hope they fix that train station clock. It's about time.

This Is Why: Just after WW II, a study by the Rand Corporation found that public clocks, as well as clocks in cars, make people anxious. Interestingly, the same study found that the placement of clocks on prominent buildings, as well as on dashboards, gave people a sense that the larger object to which the clock was attached possessed quality.

A follow-up study determined that the best way to deal with this paradox was to install the clocks, but have them work improperly, or not at all. This way, people could enjoy the various clock faces and the sense of underlying quality, without being made to feel that, once again, they were late or had to hurry up.

Watchmakers the world over have been forever grateful for this study, and have generously funded the facility to which all public and automobile clocks are sent for re-tooling prior to delivery.