The Clock That Pigeons Loved



Belleville City Hall today



No one was injured in the incident but the charred mess left inside the basement of the city’s most cherished landmark, built five years before Belleville became a city in 1878, presented a sombre scene following the fire that broke out inside the Belleville city hall on the morning of a workday on Dec 12, 1960.
It was, noted the Intelligencer at the time, the third one to occur inside the building within a span of less than a decade in the 50s. One of the earlier incidents, was determined to have been caused by a lit cigarette carried in by pigeons into the building’s attic. Few years later another fire broke out again late at night. This time it was in the building’s stairwell and while noted to have been caused by, once again, a lit cigarette thrown into the open space in the stairwell, it was not established who the perpetrator was – bird or man.
A.MacLean Haig was Belleville’s mayor at the time of the 1960 fire and J.R. Reynolds was the city manager. The latter sounded the alarm at 11:47 a.m. and the staff was quickly evacuated leaving the building carrying with them vital papers and office equipment. City fire department arrived quickly bringing with it "every available piece of fire fighting equipment in the city and two trucks from Trenton."
The fire had started behind the coal-fired furnace in the basement.
"Flames chewed into floor joists and beams in the basement under the mayor’s first floor office and smoke quickly filled the 100-year-old building," noted the writer.
"The sidewalk in front of city hall quickly became ice covered from the water which leaked from the hoses and ran out of the mayor’s office. An unused door on the west side of the building leading into the mayor’s office was smashed open by fire axes to assist firemen’s efforts to get inside and curb the spread of the flames. At noon, efforts were being made to open the huge vault in the city hall and preserve its contents. Dense, choking smoke filled the men’s public lavatory on the south side of the building."
While the firefighters battled to confine the fire to the southwest corner of the building where the mayor’s office was, police cordoned off the Front, McAnnany and Market Streets and re-routed traffic east on Bridge Street.
The incident once again put the spotlight on the pigeons who loved the 185 feet tall tower of the city hall for its nooks and crannies. It was often a familiar sight to see one of them ride the hand of its more than a century-old clock.
But, if not for the insistence of John Forin who was hired to build the red brick building back in 1873, these birds would have had a much shorter and stubbier tower to perch on.
Following much debate and squabbling over spiraling costs among the city fathers, construction of the building was completed at a cost of $35,000 by December of that year. The big tower clock was installed and a cast iron four and a half feet high bell, imported from England, was positioned beneath the dials to strike the hours. Incidentally, until the 1960s the bell was used to summon the police constables making the rounds in the city. Those days the police force had only two cars – one for the detectives and one for the rest of the force. The constables on city rounds walked and when they hear the bell at the city hall sounded, they had to call in to the police station to get the only available car to be able to go to the location of the emergency.

The tower clock had to be replaced in the early 60s when it stopped working, putting an end to the joy rides much enjoyed by the pigeons. Today, the Gothic style building of the Belleville City Hall remains as striking as ever, a rich monument to the skill and design of its builder and the grand vision of the city’s founding fathers. 

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