Does anyone really care?

 

For those of you who are excited that the Lincoln Mill Clock Tower has been “saved,” it’s a bit early to put on your party hats and break out the champagne.

Sure, the clock tower was moved from the ground where it sat rotting for seven years, but it’s hardly saved.

It will likely take hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore the dilapidated structure, replace the missing bell and weathervane.

But now, I fear, the clock tower has been moved out of sight — out of mind.

It has been moved to another place behind the building so that its rotting carcass will no longer be a public nuisance, an eyesore.

The story of how the clock tower landed on the ground is a complicated one, and detailed here.

Along with a few dozen other curious spectators, I was there on Thursday night, watching the giant crane hoist what remains of the clock tower onto a flat-bed truck.

I spoke briefly with the building’s new owners and asked if the tower would ever be placed back on its perch.

The response? “No way.”

And who could blame them? They inherited a mess created by the building’s previous owners.

Everyone in Biddeford, it seems, has an opinion about the clock tower, ranging from “it should be scrapped” to “it should go back on top of the building.”

But only a handful of people have stepped up to help save this iconic symbol of the city’s storied past.

My hat goes off to a group of passionate Biddeford High School students who last year tried to raise interest in saving the structure and organized yet another fundraising drive.

Like the fundraising drive that I helped coordinate in 1999, neither effort met its goals. Though the students have not stopped yet.

Will the residents of Biddeford step up to truly “save” the clock tower?

From my perspective, it’s a long shot but one worth taking.

As I said before, we save what we care about. Now I wonder, does anyone really care?

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PREVIOUSLY:

A new fundraising effort

A look at the clock works from the late 1990s