SAVING TIME
Project aims to restore clock tower
>> A range of options from complete restoration to bare bones work to firm things up were on the table as Trinity Lutheran Church considered what to do to fix the water damage over the years to its more than century old tower housing Perkasie’s town clock.
“We think that we have found a good middle ground and the leaders here felt that it was important for us to put the time and effort into maintaining it because maintaining this is part of maintaining Perkasie, its history and architecture,” said Drew Lutz-Long, music director of the church at 5th and Chestnut streets.
“Trinity really grew with the town,” he said. “When Perkasie started to boom because the railroad was booming is when Trinity went from a fledgling congregation of 25 to growing by hundreds at a time.”
The tower has been there since 1907 when the church moved to its current site, he said.
“The entire tower is being repaired, not back to necessarily its original glory, but it is being sounded up and water tightened,” Lutz-Long said. “Deterioration of 100 years is being fixed.”
Penn Builders is the general contractor for the project that is expected to continue through the summer, he said. Machemer Contracting is doing the masonry work. The projected cost is about $180,000.
The clock was added to the tower in 1912, Lutz-Long said.
“It was installed in October of that year and it was the community clock,” he said.
Perkasie Borough designated persons in each neighborhood to collect funding for the clock which, at that time, cost $693, he said.
“It was the actual town that paid to have the clock put in the tower,” Lutz-Long said. “It was not the church.”
The borough’s involvement continues, he said.
The clock was electrified in 1970 at which time an electric