The bell atop Syracuse’s City Hall is mostly fake, but its meaning and its music are the real deal

In John Prall’s 25 years working for Syracuse’s Department of Public Works, he’s been one of few people with access to City Hall’s top restricted floor. He uses a series of keys to get up the elevator. From the noisy entryway, Prall has to maneuver around shelves of confidential boxes, duck underneath support beams and climb three flights of rusty stairs to reach the roof hatch to the city’s carillon – another name for a set of bells

Thumping his fist on the side of the city’s massive tower bell, he admits: “Yeah, it’s not all metal.”

In the center of the open-air space, four speakers, pointing in each direction, sit just above the part-plastic, part-bronze-plated aluminum bell.

Looking down at the streets and sidewalks, Prall said you can practically see every church, bank and apartment complex in the downtown area, from Equitable Tower to I-81. Though the pillars are wrapped in mesh, he said the rooftop is prone to winged visitors.

“We keep him in here to keep the birds out,” Prall said, pointing to an owl decoy.

Real or not, both decoys—the bird and the bell—hold symbolic and sentimental value. The bell sounds as a reminder that City Hall is there.

“Carillons have been around for a long time—500 years. It’s part of humanity’s culture,” said Frank DellaPenna, CEO and co-founder of the North American Carillon School. “If the bells aren’t speaking to [people], it’s just a tower without a voice.”

As early as 1858, City Hall’s original bell rang to celebrate happy occasions just as it did to mourn tragedies and losses in the community.

“It also functioned as a fire bell. In the days of volunteer firefighting, a dollar reward was paid to the first person to spot the fire and ring the bell—a custom that was sometimes abused,” Evamaria Hardin, an Upstate New York architectural historian, wrote in her 1993 book “Syracuse Landmarks: An AIA Guide to Downtown and Historic Neighborhoods.”

Until Armistice Day in 1939, the bell tower had been like a member of the Syracuse community. The bell was melted down and repurposed for materials needed in the World War II effort, leaving the tower empty and silent for half a century.

Many bell towers across the continent went quiet for similar reasons, DellaPenna said. Today, the North American Carillon School and the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America, an organization of professional musicians, are continuing decades-long efforts to share carillon art and culture.

As churches, government buildings and universities build and renovate their bell towers, DellaPenna said, one big question remains. “How are we really going to promote this instrument so that we don’t remain the best-kept secret in the world?”

The answer lies within the community.

Through the generosity of the Syracuse Rotary Club, the City Hall bell was replaced in 1987. John Marsellus, a Rotarian for 56 years, said it was a community project that the Rotary found out needed help.

“It needed to be fixed, and we all just decided it would be a nice thing to do,” he said.

Plus, the club was celebrating its 75th anniversary.

The Verdin Company – a producer of bells, clocks and towers since 1842 – installed an electronic carillon system and automated the bell to chime on the hour.

Marsellus reflected on the installation process fondly because the Rotary Club worked with Verdin to determine where the sound projected best before wiring everything up.

However, the sound wasn’t produced by a clapper, the free-swinging hammer that strikes the inside of the bell. In fact, it wasn’t even a “real” bell up there.

“We got the speakers to face the way we wanted it, and then we put a fake bell up there. So, when you look up there, there’s a plastic bell,” Marsellus said.

Last December, the twinkling melody of Sesame Street’s “Rubber Duckie” rang out into the air and up the streets of downtown Syracuse. As people passed by the bell tower or listened from nearby buildings, the carillon would entertain them with the cheerful and nostalgic jingle. Day after day, the tune played throughout the city. And finally, one person tweeted Mayor Ben Walsh about having to hear the same song every morning.

“I felt bad that the mayor got tagged when I was the one who chose, but I thought the song was fun,” said Chief Operations Officer Corey Driscoll Dunham, who picked that song.

While overseeing the city’s departments of public works, engineering, water, and parks, recreation and youth programs, Driscoll Dunham is also the semi-secret curator behind City Hall’s carillon.

Every other month, she scrolls through a long, color-coded spreadsheet and cycles through a catalog of a few hundred songs to ring out between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. From The Beatles to Beethoven and Christmas carols to show tunes, the music has received both compliments and complaints. But in the greater scheme of things, the carillon signals much more than a daily earworm like “Rubber Duckie.”

“Every time the bell rings, [it says] ‘Yes, we’re open for business, and we’re trying to help the community,’” DellaPenna said. The only problem with electronic carillons, he said, is that a digital instrument will only last as long as the average refrigerator.

Syracuse’s Chief Operations Officer Corey Driscoll Dunham scrolls through songs to play on the city’s carillon.

Over time, the Rotary Club found that the system’s wiring had been damaged—presumed to be gnawed at by mice—and decided to step in once more. In September 2010, an anonymous donor pitched in $11,990 towards an updated Verdin “Singing Tower Supreme” digital carillon, according to Syracuse Common Council meeting minutes. The Rotary Club dedicated the new music system around Thanksgiving that year. It featured a catalog of 300-400 prerecorded tracks, including folk songs, holiday tunes, classical pieces, patriotic anthems, melodies about the weather and seasons and more.

Using this now 12-year-old system, Driscoll Dunham said it’s about time for another update. Even with many recordings to choose from, she said it’s challenging to keep things interesting with an outdated catalog.

“Some of the songs are not ones that we really want playing from City Hall anymore,” she said. Before Driscoll Dunham took over the carillon responsibilities, she said, “Oh, Susanna,” a song with racist lyrics, was once played and met with complaints from the community.

“City Hall is in the middle of downtown,” she said. “If we’re going to have [the carillon], let’s have it in some way that embraces more about Syracuse and makes it more inclusive than the limited song selection we have now.”

In addition to holidays, Driscoll Dunham said the city has many flag raisings, cultural celebrations and heritage events that could benefit from more music.

With newer, more accessible technology, she said a state-of-the-art digital carillon could play thousands of songs via a smartphone app.

She also suggested City Hall could start inviting employee DJs of the week and possibly accept song requests from people in the community.

“I certainly do not want to be the only person choosing songs for this identifiable monument,” Driscoll Dunham said. “It’s something that everybody downtown hears, so I’d love to open it up to more folks.”

The Syracuse Common Council today approved pay raises for the mayor, the city auditor and city councilors.SYR

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