Tower Optical Company, Inc. is a small, Norwalk,

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

-based company which has manufactured a

binocular Binocular may refer to: Science and technology * Binocular vision, seeing with two eyes * Binoculars, a telescopic tool * Binocular microscope, binocular viewing of objects through a single objective lens Other uses * Binocular (horse), a thoroug ...

tower viewer A tower viewer is a telescope or binoculars permanently mounted on a stalk. The device magnifies objects seen through its lenses, allowing users to see farther and more clearly than they could with the naked eye or with less powerful viewing dev ...

used at major tourist sites in the United States and Canada since 1932. The company's large, silver-colored devices are used at

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, ...

, the

Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...

and other locations.Juliano, Michael C.
"Tower Optical sees turnaround"
August 1, 2010, ''The Advocate'' of Stamford, Connecticut, retrieved August 2, 2010 Only about 35 of the viewers are manufactured each year, but several thousand are maintained by the company. Tower Optical has various arrangements with owners of the sites where the devices are located. Where the viewers are free, they are leased; at other locations, revenue is shared between the company and the site owner. Each machine can hold up to 2,000 quarters. The binocular machine has essentially kept its distinctive, tubby shape since it was first manufactured, a deliberate strategy "to preserve its identity", according to Bonnie Rising, the third-generation owner of the family business. When coin-operated, the machines can be timed for roughly 1.5 to 2.5 minutes.Web page title
"Binocular Viewer Specifications"
at Tower Optical Company website, retrieved August 2, 2010

Operations

A foundry in Pennsylvania manufactures the parts used for Tower's viewers, about 35 of which are assembled each year in its two-story building in

East Norwalk East Norwalk is a neighborhood of Norwalk, Connecticut, located mostly in Norwalk's third taxing district with segments of its northernmost area within the first and fifth taxing districts. As one of the earliest settlements of Norwalk, it was ...

. The company maintains several thousand of the devices, sometimes removing some in the fall, rebuilding them and returning them in the spring. A typical viewer is housed in a chrome-plated, bronze-cast shell mounted on a cast iron yoke and pedestal. The inside of the machine is bronze and stainless steel. The binoculars can be raised 45 degrees up, 22 degrees down and swung entirely left or right by 360 degrees. The device and its pedestal typically stand 63 inches high and weigh 300 pounds. The company limits its distribution of the machines to the United States and Canada for easier management. As of 2004, the devices were in use in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

at Vista Point at the

Golden Gate Bridge The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California—the northern tip of the San Francisco Pen ...

and at

Coit Tower Coit Tower is a tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, offering panoramic views over the city and the bay. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built between 1932 and 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's beq ...

. That year, the City of

Sausalito, California Sausalito (Spanish language, Spanish for "small willow grove") is a city in Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States, located southeast of Marin City, California, Marin City, south-southeast of San Rafael, California ...

was considering installing five of the machines on its bay waterfront as a fund-raising move. Former Mayor J. R. Roberts, a member of a citizens committee which suggested the installation, said the machines typically cost a user 50 cents, with the city collecting half of the revenue if it took on the responsibility of collecting the coins, or 30 percent if Tower arranged for collection. Each machine was expected to earn somewhere between $1,200 and $10,000 per year. The price and length of viewing time could be customized, he said. Paul Albritton, then mayor of Sausalito, said, "In some areas, telescopes earn a few hundred dollars a month and in other places a few thousand dollars a month."

History

The company was founded by Towers S. Hamilton in 1933 in his Norwalk machine shop. He bought the shop from its owner-founders, Arthur Casey, Earl Bunnell, and John Hanrahan, soon after Hamilton started machining the parts for the viewers. His son, Towers W. Hamilton, later became the owner. His wife, Gladys (Kip) Hamilton, worked with him in the business for many years and on his death in 1989, she took over the company. She died in 2006, and at some point she passed the business on to her daughter, Bonnie Rising, who still owned the company as of 2010, when she had six employees, including her son, Gregory, and her husband, Douglas, who help run the business. Bonnie Rising said in 2010 that she expected her son to take over the business someday. Local institutions and organizations have given the company recognition for its "iconic" devices. By 2002, the company had donated one of its viewers to the nearby Norwalk Museum in

South Norwalk South Norwalk is a neighborhood in Norwalk, Connecticut which corresponds to the city's Second Taxing District. Often referred to as SoNo, the neighborhood was originally settled as Old Well, then chartered as the city of South Norwalk on August ...

. In 2008, the business was the subject of a lecture, "An American Icon: Norwalk's Tower Optical Company," given to the Norwalk Historical Society. In 2004 and 2005, the company worked with an artist as part of a project in which 10 companies teamed up with "in residence" artists "to see how technology, be it vintage or cutting-edge, can inform art in the 21st century", as a ''New York Times'' article described it. Artist Michael Oatman accompanied workers making 5 a.m. repair runs to tourist locations and "videotaped people as they fantasized about what they would most like to see with the binoculars", according to the newspaper. An exhibition, titled, ''Factory Direct: New Haven,'' about the project took place at Artspace in New Haven. Tower Optical also made a lightweight viewer for Oatman to install temporarily at tourist sites.Genocchio, Benjamin
"REVIEW; A Marriage Of Art and Industry"
February 27, 2005, ''New York Times'', retrieved August 2, 2010 By 2010, business had declined because of an ongoing recession, but, in July, Rising said a turnaround seemed to be taking place.

References

{{reflist

External links

Company website
Companies based in Norwalk, Connecticut Manufacturing companies established in 1932 Optics manufacturing companies 1932 establishments in Connecticut