The Rainbow Tower is a tower located at the Rainbow Plaza Canada–US border station of the Rainbow Bridge in

Niagara Falls Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Construction on the tower was completed in 1947. The tower, part of the Canadian plaza of the bridge, was designed by Canadian architect

William Lyon Somerville William Lyon Somerville (August 5, 1886 – April 14, 1965) was a Canadians, Canadian architect practicing in Toronto, Ontario and Southern Ontario, Canada. He was president of the Ontario Association of Architects, and president of the Royal Arch ...

The Rainbow Carillon

The Rainbow Tower houses a

carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniou ...

—a

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

consisting of a baton

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

that controls a series of bells. The Rainbow Carillon is sounded three times a day, 365 days a year. It features 55 bells with a total weight of over 43 tons. The instrument is controlled via a series of 55 oak batons and 30 foot pedals. The largest bell, called a bourdon, is in diameter and tall, weighing in at 10 tons. Musically the pitch of this bell is E. The smallest bell in the instrument weighs less than and has a circumference of . The bell castings for the Rainbow Carillon were begun in 1941 by

John Taylor Bellfounders John Taylor Bell Foundry (Loughborough) Limited, trading as John Taylor & Co and commonly known as Taylor's Bell Foundry, Taylor's of Loughborough, or simply Taylor's, is the world's largest working bell foundry. It is located in Loughborough, ...

Loughborough Loughborough ( ) is a market town in the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England, the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and Loughborough University. At the 2011 census the town's built-up area had a population of 59,932 , the second larg ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, but interrupted by the onset of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Work on the instrument resumed in 1945 and was completed by 1947. When the tower was built it contained a small apartment for the resident

carillonneur A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniou ...

. The bells were silenced for renovations from 1998 to 2001 and by 2002, the

Niagara Falls Bridge Commission The Niagara Falls Bridge Commission is an international public agency which administers three international bridges across the Niagara River connecting the province of Ontario, Canada and the state of New York, United States: the Lewiston–Que ...

had replaced the resident carillonneur with a fully automated system. The instrument can still be played manually, but is mostly automated to allow for frequent playing.

Carillonneurs

Several Canadians and at least two Americans (Kleinschmidt and Werblow) have served as carillonneurs: * Robert B. Kleinschmidt (1910-1959) 1948-1959 * John Leland Richardson (1906-1969) 1960-1969 * Gordon Frederick Slater (1950-) 1972-1975 * Robert Donnell (1910-1986) 1975-1976 * June Somerville 1976-1992 * Gloria Werblow 1986-1998

In film

The Rainbow Tower was featured in the 1953

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

thriller '' Niagara''. Scenes were filmed outside the base of the tower, combined with sound stage footage. The long "tracking" shot of Marilyn Monroe was completed in one shot, unique in "Three-Strip" Technicolor.

References

Sources

* {{coord, 43.0919, N, 79.0702, W, display=title Towers completed in 1947 Buildings and structures in Niagara Falls, Ontario Carillons Bell towers in Canada Towers in Ontario

The Rainbow Carillon

Carillonneurs

In film

See also

References

Sources