How Did the Colgate Clock Get Here?

The giant Colgate clock in Jersey City is the second huge clock placed atop the nearby Colgate company warehouse, created in 1924 after an earlier 1906 clock honoring the company's centennial. Its eight-sided shape recalls Octagon Soap, an early popular Colgate laundry cleanser. Colgate's history of product development included Cashmere Bouquet, a milled perfumed toilet soap introduced in 1872, toothpaste sold in a jar, and a collapsible toothpaste tube manufactured in 1896; nearly 90 years later, an image of that best-selling product was placed beside the clock above the warehouse. Measuring 50 feet across and covering nearly 2,000 square feet, the clock is the world's seventh largest functioning clock face. It originally ran on 28 rechargeable high-voltage batteries, kept time to the minute, operated from 1924 until the summer of 1955 when it was briefly stopped so its huge wooden hands could be replaced, and still functions today just south of 30 Hudson Street. William Colgate founded Colgate's Soap and Perfumery Works as a maker of soap, starch, and candles, and the business later became Colgate-Palmolive and Company. In Jersey City, what began as a soap factory grew into a large industrial complex that employed 600 workers by the late 1800's, with buildings for manufacturing, administration, and research spread between York, Greene, Hudson, and Grand Streets and linked by elevated walkways. One building from the original complex still stands at 95 Greene Street. The company established a starch factory at nearby Harsimus Cove in 1825, replaced the original clock with this one in 1924, removed the plant's 20-foot Soaps Perfumes sign in 1983 and later replaced it with a giant toothpaste tube, left Jersey City in 1988, lowered the clock to ground level in 1988-1989, and moved the refurbished clock with thousands of LED lights to its current waterfront site in 2013.

Jersey City, New Jersey · United States