Photo by Max Guliani

Suzanne Dirks was commuting by bike from her West Village home to Tribeca last year when she first started noticing clocks along her route. She had always loved the one at Jefferson Market on Sixth and 10th, she said, but now clocks were cropping up everywhere. At first it was a distraction but it soon became a passion.

“They are still a connection to our community history, even if we don’t rely on them anymore,” she said.

She’s now documented almost 100 clocks on her Instagram site @newyorkcityclocks, learning with each one a bit more about the area’s history. (Her goal is to cover ALL the city’s clocks.) And she’s now a board member of Save Americas Clocks, a non-profit dedicated to their preservation.

So when she got to wind the historic clock at Bogardus Plaza (that’s Suzanne with Friends of Bogardus Plaza president Tory Weil, above), it was a real treat. (That clock is actually not a native — it’s from Lansing, Michigan, from 1910.)

Photo by Max Guliani

“They are heartbeats of the city — they are literally ticking,” she said. “They spark joy for me. Time is so precious [both her parents died within the past few years; she’s 34] so it’s bigger than the clocks themselves for me. Clocks give a moment to pause and breathe in the city.”

I knew of a few clocks in the neighborhood, but indeed there are some hidden in plain sight. (“It is really fun as a scavenger hunt.”) A few off the top of Suzanne’s head:

• 146 Duane between West Broadway and Church
• 280 Broadway | Sun Building at Chambers and Broadway
• City Hall has four clocks (“These were the first to be first clock to be illuminated in the city — with gas lamps,” Suzanne said.)
• 101 Leonard – the Clock Tower Building
• David Rockefeller Memorial Clock (in the traffic island between Broadway and Park Row)
• 220 Church between Worth and Thomas
• The Roxy hotel plaza (originally built as the Tribeca Grand in 2000)
• 407 Broadway at Lispenard (Chase Bank)

And to her list I added the William Barthman clock embedded in the sidewalk on Broadway at Maiden Lane.

Suzanne hopes to compile her collections in a book some day, and will hopefully add to the database at Save America’s Clock. And she has one other goal: clock literacy.

“People can’t read clock faces anymore!” she noted. But they do love it when they see them — folks send her pictures constantly. “It’s contagious. Once you see one you keep seeing them.”