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When turning back the clock means going under an NYC sidewalk
By
Hannah Frishberg
Published Nov 4, 2026 at 2:30 p.m. ET
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Hannah Frishberg / Gothamist
By
Hannah Frishberg
Published Nov 4, 2026 at 2:30 p.m. ET
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Time waits for no man — except Gilo Vintimilla, the master jeweler whose expertise is required to turn back the hands on the only clock embedded in a New York City sidewalk.
“There?” he asks his phone in a lilting Ecuadorian accent as he balances on top of a ladder beneath the sidewalk, carefully adjusting the clock’s minute hand from below.
“No, no, too far, come back,” responds Brianna Thompson, as she observes the clockface from street level. Thompson is marketing director for William Barthman Jeweler — the very company that installed the clock here on the corner of Maiden Lane in 1899 as a novelty advertisement in front of the business's original location. “Wait, no, too far, come forward.”
Of the many New York City clocks that don’t automatically update for daylight saving time, few require as much manual care as the Financial District’s pavement timepiece. But despite the hassle, Vintimilla has been loyally descending into this basement since 2001 every time the clock needs a fix.
“It's a labor of love. The clock is his baby,” Thompson explains after we ascend to the street and Vintimilla flits away to William Barthman’s current location a few blocks away. Meanwhile, the Wall Street lunch crowd appears none the wiser about time’s mechanical passage, as people rush past and periodically over (and on) the clock.
It’s a tough baby to love: Some 50,000 people a day walk over its sapphire crystal cover. In addition to adjusting for daylight saving, Vintimilla must periodically jiggle the face to get off dirt, lest it get in the mechanisms. Around 2014, a hand truck rolled over the clock and broke the glass. In 2001, the force of the Twin Towers’ collapse sent a crack through the sidewalk, the clock and the adjacent building. Vintimilla fitted the clock with a fresh new face and cover; the crack is still visible in the sidewalk and building.
The William Barthman clock from below and above
Hannah Frishberg / Gothamist
Recently, the residential conversion of that building, 174 Broadway, turned the basement in which the clock is powered into a wreckage-filled pit of broken beams and rubble. Vintimilla plans to readjust the clock face soon to make sure it’s level, an endeavor that will likely require temporarily removing it from its subterranean perch.
When he’s not fixing the clock, he’s fixing just about everything else, from eyeglasses and jewelry to handbags and shoes, or doing custom jewelry design. Though he’s trained by various vendors, including Rolex, he’s mostly self-taught.
Since the William Barthman company installed the timepiece here over 120 years ago, maintaining it has always been a challenge met by impassioned jewelers. When its original designer died in 1917, no one could maintain the mechanical oddity, and so it was replaced with a version that could be. Today, the clock may be fixed in history and concrete, but its upkeep is dependent on Vintimilla and whoever pays 174 Broadway’s Con Ed bill.
Its preservation, however, is spiritually important, says clock enthusiast and recently licensed NYC Tour Guide Suzanne Dirks, handing me a sheet of custom clock stickers as we stand under scaffolding, gazing at the clock’s stalwart — if grime-spotted — compass.
“The clock is a window in time. A relic of time. It's seen so much change,” she waxes as tourists stumble by, intermittently looking up and at their phones.
In our digital world, such analog heirlooms are no longer necessary to determine the hour, but, Dirks says, "I think we still desperately need them because they’re reminders that there’s an IRL world where we are connected by these anchors, that time is shared amongst New Yorkers.”
Tagged
Existing in New York City
business
manhattan
Hannah Frishberg
Hannah Frishberg covers New York City arts and culture. Got a tip? Email Hannah at [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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