Colgate Palmolive Company: Colgate Clock / Colgate Palmolive Company

Colgate Clock
Colgate-Palmolive Company
Jersey City Waterfront at Exchange Place
Paulus Hook Section

The octagonal Colgate clock, facing Manhattan, was set in motion at noon on December 1, 1924, by Jersey City's Mayor Frank Hague. Located on the former site of Colgate-Palmolive & Company, it was the company's second clock that became the city's iconic symbol for its industrial waterfront and synonymous with the company.

The clock's design was inspired by the shape of a bar of Octagon Soap, first manufactured by Colgate in 1887 as a laundry cleanser. The clock's surface has a 50-foot diameter, is 1,963.5 square feet, and is fitted into a structural steel framework. The minute hand is 25 feet, 10 inches long, and the hour hand is 20 feet long, both mounted on a face of stainless-steel slats. The timepiece could be adjusted and was set within one minute of accurate time. A small master clock at Colgate's plant reception office checked the time against the US Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. The clock's mechanism, similar to a traditional wall clock with weights and wheels, was powered by twenty-eight rechargeable large-volt batteries.

On June 13, 1955, after almost 31 years of enduring the elements, the clock was stopped at 9:30 a.m. for repairs. A New York Times article reports that ". . . the laminated wooden hands, waterlogged on wet or humid days . . . had Colgate mechanics bowlegged changing counterweights to keep the time just right. . . . Another fault had developed, too. The steel trusses that support the hands had rusted." (Meyer Berger, "About New York." New York Times 11 July 1955).

The replacement of the clock's hands took longer than expected, prompting hundreds of calls to the company from those dependent on the clock to keep them on schedule. The new installation finally happened on July 28th and 29th, and the iconic timepiece was operating again in a week ("New Hands on Big Clock." New York Times 30 July 1955). The dimensions of the clock's hands were altered by counterbalances making for inconsistencies in published measurements of the timepiece. 

Overlooking the Hudson River, the octagonal clock and signage "Soaps-Perfumes" perched above the Colgate complex remained unaltered until 1983.  Then a toothpaste tube that advertised one of Colgate's best-selling products replaced the original signage.  In 1988, Colgate decided to leave Jersey City, citing the need for improved facilities. The iconic clock was removed from the building, lowered to ground level, and installed as a freestanding local landmark on the Goldman Sachs property, which became part of the 24-acre waterfront redevelopment at Exchange Place in the 1990s

In 2013, the clock was moved to its present location on property leased from the State of New Jersey, south of the Goldman Sachs Tower at the foot of Essex Street. The engraving on the new platform reads: "The Colgate Clock/Marking the Passage of Time since 1908." Colgate-Palmolive continues to own the clock. It became more hi-tech with 3,500 LED bulbs and a new motor installed in 2019.

Colgate Palmolive Company

William Colgate founded Colgate's Soap and Perfumery Works, later Colgate-Peet, in 1806. The company manufactured starch, soaps, and candles at a shop on John and Dutch Streets, New York City.  When Colgate moved his company to Jersey City in 1820 to produce starch, it was referred to as "Colgate's Folly." The company instead flourished and expanded to a sizeable complex by 1847.  A decade later, Colgate's son Samuel reorganized the company as Colgate & Company.  It took on brand products such as Octagon soap and a perfumed-soap Cashmere Bouquet. It revolutionized dental care with toothpaste sold in jars (1873) and later in a "collapsible" tube (1896). 

Jersey City became Colgate's corporate headquarters in 1910 and merged with the Palmolive-Peet Company to form the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Company in 1928. "Palmolive" in the name came from a palm and olive oil soap, first produced by the B.J. Johnson Soap Company.  The Peet Brothers (William, Robert, and James) Company merged with Palmolive in 1926.

By the 1950s, the Colgate complex expanded to the six-block area of York, Greene, Hudson, and Grand streets. While the industrial plant no longer exists due to waterfront redevelopment in the 1990s, "G Block," an eight-story building for manufacturing personal care products, remains. The repurposed facility, renamed Liberty Innovative Centre, at 95 Greene Street (between Greene and York), was purchased by Thor Equities (2019) from SJP Properties. It is intended to serve as a life science and healthcare incubator for research in the Paulus Hook district.

The First Clock

Today's landmark clock replaces an earlier and smaller clock designed by Colgate engineer Warren Dav(e)y and built by the Seth Thomas Company for Colgate's centennial founding in 1906. The 38-foot diameter clock was also made of structural steel with its face of stainless-steel slats to accommodate the weather. In 1908, the clock was set on the roof of an eight-story warehouse at the southeast corner of York and Hudson Streets. Engineer William P. Field designed the 200-foot-long and 40-foot-high advertisement "COLGATE'S SOAPS-PERFUMES" in 20-foot-high letters. It was illuminated at night by 1,607 bulbs emitting 28,000 watts of light.

From the Jersey City waterfront, the Colgate clock could be seen some 20 miles away to Staten Island and the Bronx. It gave the area a practical symbol of the company. When replaced by the present-day clock, the former Colgate clock was installed atop a Colgate facility at Clarksville, Indiana, on the banks of the Ohio River.