BOPA Launches Indiegogo Campaign to Restore Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower Clock

News Release | October 15, 2015 | 0 Comments

The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts Release:

The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts announces the launch of a crowd-sourced funding campaign to assist with a $1.9 million restoration to the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower. “Start the Clock! Bromo Tower Restoration Fund” on the website Indiegogo seeks to raise $25,000 from donors who can contribute at any level. The restoration began October 12 with the removal of the clock hands and is expected to take eight months to one year to complete. Technicians from Azola Building Rehab, Inc., who completed the first round of renovations to the building in 2007, will complete restorations to the clock tower and exterior of the building while Balzer Family Clockworks will restore the clock which stopped working over a year ago. The campaign can be found here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/start-the-clock-bromo-tower-restoration-fund#/.

After the clock is removed, Balzer Family Clockworks will tune up the clock’s gears and restore the clock to its original weight-driven mechanism, replacing the electric motor. Azola Building Rehab, Inc. will restore and repair damage to the exterior of the building, much of which was caused by the weight of the 51-foot spinning Bromo-Seltzer bottle that originally topped the tower.

The Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower was built in 1911 by Captain Isaac E. Emerson, a pharmacist who invented the popular headache remedy Bromo Seltzer. Built as the Emerson Drug Company’s headquarters, the tower was modeled after Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. The clock is the largest four-faced pendulum driven clock in the world, designed to be more than one foot taller than London’s Big Ben. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was donated to the city by Emerson under the condition that it would be preserved. In 2007, the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts completed the first round of renovations to the tower by converting it from a vacant, uninhabitable space to studio spaces for artists. This conversion helped ignite major economic growth in the area that is now known as the Bromo Arts & Entertainment District.

The Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower is managed by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts. Early supporters of the phase II restoration include the City of Baltimore, Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, Baltimore Development Corporation, Maryland Heritage Area Authority, Baltimore National Heritage Area, Middendorf Foundation and Preservation Maryland.