The Time & Temperature Building (official name 477 Congress Street) is a fourteen story office building located on Congress Street in downtown Portland, Maine. The building is named after the large display screen on the roof that flashes the local time and temperature.
Originally known as the Chapman Building, it was erected in 1924 as a twelve-story building. Together with the ten story Fidelity Trust Tower next door, these buildings were for many years two of Portland's tallest.
When it first opened, the Chapman Building once had the state's first indoor shopping center on its ground floor. A few shops still operate inside. In 1964, two additional floors were built, with the flashing time and temperature sign installed on the roof. At the time, Casco Bank & Trust was the main tenant of the building, so in addition to the time and temperature, the words "CASCO" and "BANK" also flashed. An updated sign was installed in 1999.
When the addition was added in 1964, its more modern design did not go well with the older section, and in the 1980s, a major renovation of the building took place, and this problem was corrected.
The building, being one of Portland's tallest, can be seen for many miles around, including from Peaks Island across the harbor. Many Portlanders depend on the Time and Temperature sign, as it has become a popular landmark on the skyline. On one occasion, the malfunction of the sign resulted in 60 phone calls to the owners of the building in the hours after the sign stopped displaying information.
Over the years, different sponsors have had messages flashing from the sign, including Portland Savings Bank, WMTW-TV, and most recently, The Law Offices of Joe Bornstein (with the message "CALL" "JOE"). Also, when there is a snowstorm, the words "PARK" and "BAN" flash to remind people not to park on the street during snow removal. Maine law normally prohibits flashing messages on signs visible from state highways, but the Maine Legislature passed an exemption in the law for the Time and Temperature sign, to allow it to use advertising to cover its operating costs starting in 1991.
Besides general offices, the building is home to television station WMTW, NESN Portland, and radio stations WTHT 99.9, WHXR "The Bone" (now simulcast on 106.3 and 106.7), WFNK Frank FM, on 107.5, and The Maine Sports Network on AM 870/1470 WLAM
Famous quotes containing the words time and, time, temperature and/or building:
“The personal things should be left out of platforms at conventions .... You can argue yourself blue in the face, and you’re not going to change each other’s minds. It’s a waste of your time and my time.”
—Barbara Bush (b. 1925)
“The vines of her arms
didn’t cling to the ends of his clothes,
or did she plant herself in the doorway,
hurl herself at his feet,
or utter the word “Stay!”
But as that fool began to go
at the time when it was dark with swarming clouds,
the slim girl blocked her lover’s way
with only a rising river
made with her flood of tears.”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)
“This pond never breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, on account both of its greater depth and its having no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice.... It indicates better than any water hereabouts the absolute progress of the season, being least affected by transient changes of temperature. A severe cold of a few days’ duration in March may very much retard the opening of the former ponds, while the temperature of Walden increases almost uninterruptedly.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall—which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)