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American Morning

Clock Tower in Brooklyn Stopping People in Tracks

Aired May 02, 2002 - 08:57   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Your watch may tell a time if it has a battery. If you're into watching faces, have we got a face for you, a clock tower in Brooklyn that may not be as famous as Big Ben, but it's stopping people in their tracks with that eerie feeling somebody is watching them.

CNN's Jeanne Moos explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You've probably been told to keep an eye on the clock. Did you ever this clock would keep an eye on you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought it was an apparition.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was wondering what is that, because I thought that I was hallucinating?

MOOS: They look down at us, they look up at God knows what. For almost a month, faces have graced the clock tower visible from the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a little freaky.

MOOS: We're accustomed to seeing a face on a watch, be it O.J. Simpson, complete with Bronco chase, or Bill Clinton, with a growing nose.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually tripling in length every 10 seconds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MOOS: But this clock take a bite out of the Big Apple's Skyline.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought it was the guy that live there just showing some home movies.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think he said it's too bad it's not porn.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When we first saw it, we thought it was people that were like up to no good up there, just walking around. MOOS: Real people up there walking around all right, the ones who turn on four giant projectors every evening, sending out images to all four clocks on the tower.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mylar.

MOOS: Artist Michael Counts dreamed up the project as he passed by the clock tower every day.

MICHAEL COUNTS, ARTIST/DIRECTOR, GALE GATES ET AL: They're starting to have somebody up there looking out, you know, a benign, benevolent big brother.

MOOS: Michael got about 70 New Yorkers to play to a camera, some actors, some friends, some strangers.

COUNTS: For the most part, they just treated the camera lens as a window, as if they were peering out on to the city.

MOOS: The one thing practically no one could resist, the urge to put an eye up to the lens, eyeballs of every race, eyeballs of every age, eyeballs of every color. Aye-yi-yi! Starting to look like Lasik eye surgery.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's pleasing to the eye, but I just hope it doesn't infect the neighborhood with artists and new -- because you know, after the artist move, the rich people move in.

MOOS: Well, actually, the developers who let Michael use the space plan to renovate and put it on the market for $8 million to $10 million bucks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would the owner finance? Over 300 years.

MOOS: Check out the view several celebrities have, from Kevin Costner to Sean "P. Diddy" Combs.

For the clock project's finale May 3rd, spectators are urged to bring along a radio, tune it in 91.1, and hear a simulcast of what the faces are saying. Now, that's a clock radio!

MOOS: Give that clock some eye drops.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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