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Syosset, NY—Five years is a lot of time to spend fighting about a clock that doesn’t yet exist. Pardon the pun, but for Marc Solomon of Solomon Jewelers, it’s not about time, it’s about the service.

Solomon, a Rotarian, believes firmly in Rotary International's motto, “service above self,” and in that spirit, he and fellow members of the Syosset/Woodbury Rotary set out to donate a beautiful street clock to the community of Syosset on Long Island, New York.

Who knew a simple donation of a clock would be anything but simple?

“I spent five years on this project—getting the land, getting the landlords to agree, getting architects to create a space for it, and fighting with the town government to allow it,” Solomon says. The Rotary club was the force behind the funding, but Solomon was the project point man—the one who met with architects, compromised with landlords, and argued with (and eventually prevailed) the town leaders. Last month, the new black and gold street clock was installed across from the Syosset train station, on the property of the Astoria Bank building, which houses both the bank branch and a number of offices.

“We installed it across from the train station so that the most people would see it,” Solomon said. “No matter which way you come out of the station, which way you turn, you see it.”

The clock itself, a two-sided lit street clock, was made by The Fancy Street Clock Company of Rock Island, Illinois. Its base is black and gold, and it sits in a specially designed brick plaza, whose bricks are available for Rotarian community businesses to engrave.

The bricks are not meant to be commercial, stresses Solomon. They must be community oriented and non-promotional.

“Every Tuesday, I go to a Rotary lunch where we raise money to donate to different community organizations. One week it’s a sock drive, the next a homeless shelter, and so forth. I call it ‘Mitzvah Tuesday;’ I get to do a mitzvah (the Yiddish word for good deed) every week.” Solomon’s also donates more than 500 items per year and participates in many charity drives, walks, and so forth. It also makes a donation to Jewelers for Children in memory of any customers who pass away.

The Rotary clock actually had been created before the battle over its placement had been won. Luckily the Fancy Street Clock Company was willing to provide fancy street clock storage until all the details in Syosset were finalized.

The Syosset Rotary Clock story also is a classic tale of how a jeweler never knows who the next customer will be. One day woman came into Solomon’s looking for a gift box for a Boy Scout presentation. The item to be presented was a compass, so Marc Solomon told her to come back with the compass and he’d give her a box.  While he was packaging it up, he told her about how he’d been a Boy Scout and was happy to help out.

“I don’t know if you know who I am, but my Dad is the one who makes the decisions about buildings in this town,” said the woman. “Another den mother told me to come here for the box because you’re very nice.”

It was thus, after five years of wrangling, that one little free box changed everything and led to the clock finally being donated and installed. It was, in the end, time well spent.