2. The Sun Clock and Thermometer

Besides the “Sun Building” letters on the facade, two other relics’s of 280 Broadway’s New York Sun era are the clock and thermometer mounted on the building, the former on the southwest corner and the latter on the northwest corner. The four-face clock and the two-face thermometer feature the newspaper’s logo and motto: “ The Sun – It Shines for All.” The Sun Clock was installed in 1930, the Sun Thermometer in 1936, and both underwent repairs in 1943.

By the mid 1960s, both had stopped operating and an advocacy group, the Friends of the Old Sun Clock, raised money for the clock’s repair (Henry Modell was one of the benefactors). It started ticking again in 1967. (At that time, a sign on the thermometer read “Please Somebody Fix Me Too.” From the look of the photo above, there was still a problem in 2007. (Now the thermometer is covered by scaffolding.)