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Darr Anderson, 30, is a clock and watch man, specializing in varieties produced between 1700 and the Cold War’s dawn. He reps towering sideburns and thick black suspenders. In a compact, clock-filled hideaway at the back of a vintage emporium on Southeast 2nd Avenue, he’s forged his business, Father Time (125 SE Stark St., fathertimewatchandclockrepair.com), as a shrine to the craftsmanship of a bygone era—and an assertion that it will matter again.
Clocks cover every patch of wall, but Anderson collects more than just clocks. The other day, he stood to approach one of his Edison phonographs. “You are about to hear a voice from 132 years ago,” he said, flipping the switch to unleash from the spinning cylinder a voice of grainy warmth.
Anderson’s wrist today carries a Montblanc chronograph. He pulls out from some nook a 22 karat gold beauty, adorned with memento mori skulls that were in vogue when someone etched them 300 years ago. Often when a client arrives with a stalled-out watch from a thrift store, a battery replacement will do, but sometimes the entire “mechanism” needs refashioning, perhaps a custom spring. Gabriel, 19—who became Anderson’s apprentice a few weeks ago, after losing his job at Chipotle—emerges to explain the clock’s main components.
Anderson nods as his apprentice holds forth. Tick tick tick tick tick. Does the sound of all these clocks drive them insane? It’s 2:52 pm. Why did a clock just clang? Why do so many say the wrong time? A chime could ring at any moment, and Anderson says he enjoys this.
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