One day in the summer of 1987 Curt Mangel was jogging past the clock tower along the lake at Waveland Avenue and noticed that the clock wasn’t working. He thought that was a shame. “It was an embarrassment to the city that we had such a wonderful Gothic structure with this gorgeous clock right there in a lovely stretch of Lincoln Park–but the clock didn’t work. “I thought to myself, ‘You ought to do something about that.’”
The clock tower is part of an old field house at Waveland that was built in the early 1930s when that stretch of Lincoln Park was being designed. “It’s a very elaborate structure,” says Askins. “In those days each field house in every park, like Humboldt Park or Garfield Park, had its own distinct style. This was a time when the city really poured its resources into public-works projects. This particular field house is English Gothic, with a slate roof–it’s made of real brick.”
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Jones said he liked Mangel’s proposal and promised to take it up with his bosses. But it took about 18 months for Mangel and his cohorts to get the go-ahead. “I don’t want to say anything bad about the Park District, because they may take it the wrong way–and they have been nice to let us fix their clock,” says Mangel. “But you know how it can be with a bureaucracy. There was a lot of paper to fill out. The big concern was insurance. Finally, we signed a waiver, saying we wouldn’t sue them if we got hurt.”
The first task at Waveland was to get the big clock working. “We rented a swing stage, like they use to wash windows,” says Mangel. “And we hung the swing stage by a hook from the parapet of the tower. It’s about six stories high, but I was never scared. It’s just a matter of being careful–I don’t mind hanging in the air.
A few weeks later, Tranter met Askins.
“I know I’m forgetting something–oh yes, we have a skating rink here in the winter. Now we’ve fixed the tower, so we’ve got this too. Can’t you just imagine a band out in the front playing a concert of music by John Philip Sousa? It would be wonderful.
