fresh air - Quaboag Current

More documents

Recommendations

Info

PAGE 8 A Turley Publication • www.turley.com I Thursday, February 9, 2012 UPGRADES I FROM PAGE 1 Gateway computers, and some of them are older than our students and it goes without saying that they are very slow.” He said the two schools utilize overhead projectors, but they do not compare with interactive Smartboards. “If we want to offer a 21st century education, we need to use 21st century tools. Our plan is to provide equity for all of our students,” Kustigian said. “Students from West Brookfi eld Elementary and Warren Elementary will attend Quaboag. If students in West Brookfi eld have access to the latest and greatest and students from Warren do not, I think there is an equity issue there and that concerns me. We want to provide a high-quality education, retain students and increase our school choice.” Kustigian said the district is looking for newer computers and an upgrade to the infrastructures at both schools, as well as a Smartboard in every classroom. Some of the facility improvements to Quaboag would include parking lot and athletic court repairs, replacement of school fi re alarm system, and structural repairs to the walls and fl oors. Facility improvements to Warren Elementary would include replacement of the school clocks/PA system, the installation of hot water unit and attic insulation and playground equipment. The total amount for technology request is $925,383, with Warren’s portion being $674,553. West Brookfi eld’s portion would be $250,830. The total facilities request is $468,700, with Warren’s portion being $340,020 and West Brookfi eld’s being $128,680. The total capital request amount for Warren would be $1,014,573. Kustigian said the amounts are different for Warren and West Brookfi eld Elementary because Warren Elementary is a larger school with a larger student body. Selectman Robert Souza, Jr. asked Kustigian whether the school would lose students if Quaboag does not have this technology, specifi cally students from West Brookfi eld who are accustomed to utilizing it. “The potential does exist,” Kustigian said. “I think parents from West Brookfi eld are watching and waiting to see what we’ll do. I also don’t want to minimize some of the other things that we are doing. We have two innovation schools going on right now and we have two innovation proposals for the elementary schools – that would mean that the Quaboag Regional School District would be the only school in the entire state that would have all its schools as innovation schools. Our teachers are phenomenal and we are doing everything possible to provide the best education. This would help us to hit the ball right out of the park.” FREE! PICK UP THE QUABOAG CURRENT EVERY THURSDAY Available at: West Warren – Traska’s Village Market Outside W. Warren Post Office Warren Senior Center Warren – Warren Town Hall • Cash Market Cakettes Café • Tebo’s • Xtra Mart Town Pizza • Warren Package Store Outside Old Town Hall/Police Station Brookfield – Cumberland Farms East Brookfield – EB Flatts • Trolley Stop Town Hall • Cumberland Farms • Klem’s North Brookfield – Hannaford’s New Braintree – Reed’s Country Store www.quaboagcurrent.com The Quaboag Current is a Turley Publication • www.turley.com Carl “Skip” Neilson oils the gears of the clock The driveshaft and gears on the back of one of the four clock faces that turn the hands. Carl “Skip” Nielson oils parts of the hammer that strikes the bell. Clock off ers gli into tow By Jennifer Grybows Guest Columnist -BROOKFIELD- When someone offers you th more than 100 years’ wo action unavailable to the you don’t say no. And that’s exactly the opportunity to tour the clock tow fi eld Town Hall last Friday. Former Selectman Carl “Skip” N cently repaired the clock, and cur Rudy Heller met me outside the to rainy, cold morning and were reliev had worn sensible shoes for the tour ured out why. As we climbed up the magnifi cen feeling of history, past people and tim palpable. I could almost hear the mu Hall on the second fl oor if I shut my third fl oor, a large desk sat set up in if someone had gone home at the en never came back. But I was brought back to reality the third fl oor, I was presented a rou en ladder leading up to a trap door. that ladder, and two more after that rustic than the last, hoisting and pull onto the fl oor above, each dustier th The fl oor below the clock itself s hardware used when the clock was o dulum. Those were the days when t be wound up by a hand crank on a r “It used to be gravity that moved son said. Nielson estimated the clock was e time in the 1950s by looking at the v ics and switches added. Nielson ex clock is more accurate with a motor second rotation per minute (RPM) cycles of electricity more accurately the clock runs on electricity, it is al a battery, so it has an uninterrupted the electricity should go out. However, Nielson did admit that h pier if the clock was still running on After checking out the pendulum the last ladder to the clock itself. Ho shift wooden shack for protection, t all its glory. Each part shining and be showed us exactly how the clock w to gear. Steadily, the gears moved on never faltering in their slow beauty. Encased in one of the walls of the is a yellowed care instruction sheet clock was purchased. As we read i mented that the gears used to be whale oil. He said since whale oil isn more – and being a purist, he checke used instead. Nielson said the clock at least every six months to maintai condition. But it wasn’t always that way. T run in about seven years until Nielso The main clock motor had an open ings and the bearings were seized so for service. “I called about the motor and it manufacturer didn’t even have a about it,” Nielson said. “The output RPM, and no one makes one of that we had to rebuild it.” Another problem Nielson ran in found that gear in the bell strike stripped. “It turns out [the gear] was an o dard distance between the pitch,” checked around it was going to be replace it, so I patched it.” In fact, he welded the new teeth o down by hand, at no cost to the tow Nielson also disassembled, clea bench tested and replaced the be
ki tower mpse n history e chance to see th of history in general public, why I jumped at er at the Brook- ielson, who rerent Selectman wn hall on the ed to see that I and soon I fi g- t staircases, the es gone by were sic in the Grand eyes. Up on the a dark room as d of the day and when there, on gh-hewn wood- We climbed up , each one more ing ourselves up an the last. till contains the perated by penhe clock had to egular basis. the gears,” Niel- lectrifi ed someintageelectronplained that the because the 60 follows the 60 . Now, although o hooked up to power supply if e would be hapa pendulum. , we climbed up used in a makehe clock runs in autiful, Nielson orks, from gear and on and on, clock enclosure from when the t, Nielson comlubricated with ’t available anyd – a synthetic is should be oiled n good working he clock hadn’t n made repairs. ing in the windit was removed was so old the ny information of the motor is 2 size anymore, so to was when he mechanism was ddball, nonstan- Nielson said. “I about $1,000 to n and fi led them n. ned, lubricated, ll strike motor; TURLEY PUBLICATIONS PHOTO BY JENNIFER GRYBOWSKI built and installed a shelf under the clock to hold the new battery, and rewired the clock to accommodate it; cleaned and lubricated the entire machine; repaired the south-facing gear set; and resynchronized the hands. “It should go another 100 years now,” Nielson said. “It was really in good shape; it just needed some repairs and some cleaning. It just needed some love, that’s all.” Although cleaning clocks is not his offi cial vocation, this is not the fi rst such clock Nielson has repaired. “I’m a putterer,” he said. “I do it as a hobby.” This hobby began when he was about 8 years old. “Anything electric or mechanical that was thrown away I would pull out of the trash, pull apart and fi x it,” he said. “I fi gured if it was already broken, I couldn’t hurt it. I’d usually get it running.” Nielson owns Worcester Elevator Company and said that elevators and clocks aren’t as different as one might think. Plus, he has an affi nity for history. “I like old things,” he said. “I’d hate to see this replaced with a digital clock made out of plastic.” While we talked, the clock struck 10 a.m., and we heard the bell toll from inside the tower. Awestruck by the experience, I couldn’t help but ask if we could go see it. Happily, my hosts obliged. Nielson procured yet another dusty old ladder The bell at the top of the tower. A Turley Publication • www.turley.com I Thursday, February 9, 2012 PAGE 9 and we used that to climb on top of the shack. Careful to walk around the edges of the shack, where it is strongest, we made our way over to another ladder. Nielson climbed up to the top and as he removed the fi nal trap door, a rectangle of light appeared on the shack roof, getting larger and larger. We climbed up into the daytime and took in the bell. Painted a shiny black, the 1871 cast steel Limited Sheffi eld by Vickers & Sons bell is rung by a hammer at the top of each hour. There is also a hand-ringer, a large ball at the end of a cast steel handle, which would be rung presumably in an emergency. As we left the tower, we got to talking about the history of the clock and the bell. Since the clock has a date on it of 1872, and the bell has a date of 1871, Nielson and Heller thought maybe the tower had survived the fi re at the turn of the last century. Not so, says Town Historian Robert Wilder. The old town hall (built in 1867), including the clock tower and its contents, was reduced to ashes on Sept. 4, 1902. According to Wilder, the clock tower, which at the time was in the process of being built, had fallen about 30 minutes after the alarms were sounded. While no one knows for sure, the fi re was assumed then to have been started by some clock tower workmen who had been using a soldiering pot on the tower. Wilder’s archives show that, “a few minutes after the fi re reached the tower, the The hammer that strikes the bell is rusted with use. The inner workings of the clock. large bell, weighing 1,800 pounds which was put into place a few days ago, fell from its hanging to the fl oor below. Later it fell to the street fl oor where it remained for some time and then fell into the cellar, where it was covered with burning debris.” So it is probably safe to say that the current bell is not the original one. Wilder said that because it takes so long to cast and then season a bell, manufacturers would build up their stock years in advance, and the date on the bell has no bearing on the year it was installed. As for the clock, no one seems to know exactly how it got to Brookfi eld when the new town hall was built in 1904. Wilder’s records show that the new tower stands 86 feet high and is built on a separate foundation of solid masonry. “You can’t see the joints in it,” Wilder said. “It is very well done.” He said the separate foundation is likely to accommodate for shifting and settling of the building because the tower holds a lot of heavy equipment in a small footprint compared to the rest of the building. “There’s some pretty good engineering in that,” he said. But perhaps the real star of the show up in the belfry is the gorgeous view of Brookfi eld it affords. Glad to not be afraid of heights, I was struck by the opportunity to be able to take in the view from all four sides of the belfry.
Page 1 and 2: The ONLY local coverage in Brookfie
Page 3 and 4: ConCom eyes Cooley Hill Reservoir s
Page 5 and 6: Letters to the Editor Generous dono
Page 7: Michael White Local author Michael
Page 11 and 12: WCES Teacher of the Week Karen Bys
Page 13 and 14: TURLEY PUBLICATIONS PHOTO BY JENNIF
Page 15 and 16: TOWN REPORT I FROM PAGE 6 Brookfi e
Page 17 and 18: Your BUYLINE CONNECTION DON’T BUY
Page 19 and 20: Spencer K of C sponsors youth free
Page 21 and 22: The Week Ahead A Turley Publication
Page 23 and 24: Brookfi eld Police Logs • • •
Page 25 and 26: Buzzin’ Town Town from A Turley P
Page 27 and 28: Buzzin’ Town Town from A Turley P

fresh air - Quaboag Current

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?