But I Like the New Bank Clock

newbankie.jpgFirst National Bank of Northfield (downtown) replaced their old digital clock with a new one over the holidays, and apparently some of our younger citizens are not happy about it. My daughter called my attention to a new group on Facebook called “Eff the New Bank Clock“. (This group joins other Northfield-centric groups on Facebook, “Northfield, We Love It“, with 901 members; an opposing view, “Northfield, MN, may be a good place for some, but it’s not for me..“; and my personal favorite, “LocallyGrownNorthfield is my Number One News Source“.)

But back to the bank clock…. as my daughter and I discussed yesterday, I suspect the reason some don’t like it is simply because it’s new and different. I mean, if the bank had gone from analog to digital I could understand the dissatisfaction, but to replace an older, clunky digital display with an understated new one is, in humble opinion, an improvement. My only beef now is that the the green of the logo on the clock looks close-but-no-cigar to the green on the corner of the building facade, but hey, maybe there are plans to paint….

10 Comments

  1. Edward Cullen said:

    I noticed the new bank clock as well – I agree that ‘new and different’ isn’t always bad. There is, however, something ‘wrong’ about it in my opinion. Perhaps it’s the size difference from the old sign or in relation to the building itself. It’s also hard to say that it looks out of place or nontraditional since it’s a new digital sign replacing an old digital sign. It somehow just seems too modern – like the 10K others that I see every day in the Big Ugly World – and it takes me out of the comfortable, timeworn feeling the old one had. Comfortable consistency/continuity is vitally important to those of us who spend most of our time outside of our chosen hometown and who are worn down by the world.

    January 2, 2008
  2. Jerry Bilek said:

    It looks good to me.

    January 2, 2008
  3. Anne Bretts said:

    Perhaps they got a deal on the price for buying two…the other is at the new location.

    January 2, 2008
  4. Rob Hardy said:

    My first reaction was to dislike it, but then I had a thought: Is the new sign LED, and therefore more energy-efficient than the old sign? That would be good.

    January 2, 2008
  5. John George said:

    I think it is a “timely” addition to the downtown landscape.

    January 2, 2008
  6. Ross Currier said:

    I generally like the new bank clock. I told Dave Shumway that it looked kind of retro to me, we discussed where “retro” fits on a hundred and fifty year timeline, and so I suggested that it must be “Alexandria, Virginia, 1968”

    Indeed, according to Dave, the new sign has both energy saving and, perhaps equally important, light-bulb saving features.

    By the way, when I showed up to work today, the temperature read “-7”.

    January 2, 2008
  7. Jerry Bilek said:

    -7, that’s perfect bike riding weather Ross. Though I could use some snow tires.

    January 2, 2008
  8. As official Curmudgeon-General to the Facebook group in question, I have to say that I disliked it from the beginning and continue to do so. I was never a big fan of that new logo; I’m even less a fan when it’s on a sign replacing something that bore no logo before.

    January 3, 2008
  9. Here’s what I’ll miss about the old clock: When the sun dropped lower in the west, and hit the old clock’s west face more directly, the temperature reading would rise almost comically. Was the thermometer for the old clock behind a magnifying glass that faced west?

    I remember one day, summer of 1990, it was very hot. I think the bank clock said 104 in the early afternoon hours; then, around 8 PM that evening, the clock read 126 degrees F. Somewhere around 90 would have been closer to reality. Hot, but not 126 degrees hot.

    Seemed like daytime and nighttime temps were pretty accurate, but evening and dusk readings were quite unreliable.

    I like things like that: malfunctioning innocuously. At least, if I don’t have to rely on its proper functioning; then it would be malfunctioning nocuously.

    I haven’t noticed yet if the new clock has the same quaint, if mendacious, temperament.

    What was done with the old clock? Maybe one of its “fans” could purchase it and display it elsewhere. Northfield Historical Society, perhaps?

    January 3, 2008
  10. Anne Bretts said:

    Brendon, what a lovely observation. I hadn’t cared about the old clock until I read that. Now I will miss it as well, not as much as others, but it’s a bit of Northfield I will carry with me. Thanks for a sweet memory.

    January 3, 2008

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