Of downtown clocks and neighborhood murals

Check out these additions to Lafayette.

Thanks this morning to sponsor Stuart & Branigin for support to help make this free Saturday edition of the Based in Lafayette reporting project possible.

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Bob Feuer was at the corner of Fifth and Main streets, outside Roth Florist in downtown Lafayette, early Friday morning.

There, unassembled and bolted into a box, was the delivery from Verdin Clock Company he’d been waiting to see for months.

“Finally,” Feuer said. “It’s here.”

The new clock is at Fifth and Main streets in downtown Lafayette. (Photo: Dave Bangert)

The former co-owner of City News – a newsstand a few doors down, where Main Street Books is now – Feuer and his wife, Rhonda, donated the nearly 11-foot clock to the city as a tribute to the work done by Daybreak Rotary Club, a community service organization.

“Rotary has meant so much to me,” Feuer said, as he waited for the aluminum post and 2½-foot clock assembly to be unloaded from a crate delivered to the city earlier in the week. “This was just a way to honor that and give something that fit the look and feel of downtown.”

Lafayette crews, using a city bucket truck, hoisted the clock into place and had it set and running with the correct time long before lunch on Friday. The clock was bolted to a foundation that was built into the corner in 2015 as part of the city’s ongoing Streetscape Project in the downtown. The clock was vetted and approved by the Lafayette Historic Preservation Commission earlier this year.

Bob Feuer waits for the clock to be unpacked and assembled Friday at Fifth and Main streets in downtown Lafayette. (Photo: Dave Bangert)

The corner is a prominent one in downtown, a block from the Tippecanoe County Courthouse and at a crosswalk midway in the Lafayette Farmers Market spaces.

Friday afternoon, the clock – inscribed with the Rotary’s “Four Way Test” – already was drawing a crowd, including drivers slowing to a stop to ask about it.

“That’s cool,” Suzanne Baker, a Lafayette resident, said, before pulling away as other drivers maneuvered around her car on Main Street. “I guess I’m OK with backing up traffic for a minute. Everybody else is going to want to see this, too.”

REASONS FOR CLOCK WATCHING: There’s no shortage of good excuses to be downtown, where the new clock is, on Saturday. Among them:

• The Lafayette Farmers Market will be open for its usual Saturday hours from 8 a.m.-12:30 p.m. on Fifth Street, between Columbia and Ferry streets.

• LaLa Gallery will host its Indiana Makers Market "Summer Pop-Up,” featuring handpicked makers from all over the state to showcase handmade jewelry, pottery, glass works and more, from 8 a.m.-noon on Ferry Street, between Fifth and Sixth streets – right around the corner from the Farmers Market. Admission is free.

• OutFest 2022, Tippecanoe County’s Pride Festival, will be 4 p.m.-midnight at Fifth and Main streets, featuring 64 vendors, bands, restaurants, beer garden and a drag show starting at 9:30 p.m. Admission: $10 for adults, $5 for students, sold at the gate.

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Here’s detail in a mural by Aerosol Kingdom, aka Justin Suarez, at Ninth and Kossuth streets. (Photo: Dave Bangert)

SPEAKING OF COOL THINGS … CHECK THIS MURAL: Have you seen the mural that went up in recent weeks on the backside of the Heartland Concept property, on the northeast corner of Ninth and Kossuth streets?

The mural by Justin Suarez, who works as Aerosol Kingdom, is called “Hot Pursuit,” featuring depictions of an American kestrel, tree swallow, red-breasted grosbeak and American goldfinch, spread across the parking lot side of a commercial building that soon will house Krug Corner Pub, a second taproom/restaurant for Lafayette-based People’s Brewing Co.

(Photo: Dave Bangert)

The mural is one of three scheduled this year, funded by The Arts Federation and the Lafayette Redevelopment Commission. The others, according to presentations made earlier this year to the redevelopment commission, will go the sides of Second Flight Books, on Scott Street across from Columbian Park, and near the intersection of Teal Road and old U.S. 231.

For the best look, check it out coming up Ninth Street Hill, heading south.

Outstanding.

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Thanks, again, to the ongoing support from sponsor Stuart & Branigin for helping make this free Saturday edition of the Based in Lafayette reporting project happen.

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Tips or story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com. Also on Twitter and Instagram.