At its August meeting, Village of Roslyn Mayor John Durkin signed a grant contract totaling $32,000 for a Clock Tower renovation project. The village is the recipient of funds from the New York State Department of Parks and Recreation to do masonry work on the Clock Tower and to rehabilitate certain windows on the structure.

The monies amount to a matching grant as the village hopes to receive the same total from the private sector. The village has $14,000 coming from a KeySpan grant and up to $8,000 from a joint grant courtesy of the Roslyn Landmark Society and the Roslyn Preservation Society. The KeySpan grant is part of an agreement that company reached with Roslyn officials after some village property was damaged by that company when they were working on certain streets in the village. Roslyn officials said that more grant money from private sector sources may become available.

Board of Trustee members also described the renovation project as one leading to a "long lasting solution" in the area of Clock Tower renovation. In addition, the village will hire a surveyor to prepare a map of the property that houses the Clock Tower to help the restoration project along.

Work on the masonry and the windows is just one segment of a Clock Tower renovation process, one that has been in motion for over five years now. The project really got started back in late 1994, when the Clock Tower itself began giving the right time from three of its four sides. It was Morrie Welte, stepfather of then-BOT member Janet Galante, whose services really got the structure's renovation on track. Mr. Welte became interested in clock repair work as a retirement hobby, just in time to do work on the Clock Tower. The Roslyn Landmark Society was also instrumental back then in helping to secure funds for Mr. Welte's work. Since then, restoration work has included renovating the tower's commemorative door lintel, an interior whitewash, metalwork and glazing, and landscaping and lighting.

The Clock Tower is, of course, the village's most famous landmark. Built in 1895, it is named for Ellen E. Ward, wife of Elijah Ward, a Civil War veteran, U.S. congressman, and friend of President Garfield. In her final years in Roslyn, Ellen Ward made several generous donations to Trinity Church and following her death, the village, which was not yet an incorporated entity, lobbied the Town of North Hempstead to approve of a clock tower construction. The town obliged and the first phase of the construction was completed in December 1895, with the rest done in the spring of 1896.

Throughout the years, writers for The Roslyn News have praised the tower as both an appropriate monument and a pleasing symbol of the village. After the tower was built, an article in this paper called the structure "an ornament and a public benefit." Thirty years later, another article stated that local residents "are beginning to appreciate, once again, what a quality building it actually is as a civic amenity in a tiny village. We are delighted to have it and hope it will stand for centuries to come for which its design and construction have prepared it."