belltower

The River City News took its readers on a tour inside the Carroll Chimes Bell Tower in Mainstrasse Village last spring. The tour is being re-posted because RCN was contacted by the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America which wanted permission to use one of the photos in its worldwide directory.

The contact person who sent the email said of the tower, “I’ve never seen anything like it outside Europe!”

So, to celebrate the Carroll Chimes getting more exposure across the world, here is a re-post of the photo tour for those of you who may not have seen it last year and those of you who want to see it again.

Originally published on April 12, 2012:

Covington After Hours offered a rare look inside the Carroll Chimes Bell Tower in Mainstrasse. The Covington After Hours event at one of Covington’s signature structures was highlighted by a quick guided tour to the top of the tower and remarks by Suzanne Sizer, marketing director at the Verdin Company, the Cincinnati business that built the landmark in 1980. “One of those best and worst places to live lists came out and somehow Covington made the worst list,” Sizer said. “Governor (Julian) Carroll didn’t like this fact so he got involved in this project.”

The Verdin Company was sent to Germany to find a suitable glockenspiel to inspire the design of one back in Covington. A Munich glockenspiel that featured The Pied Piper of Hamelin was selected. Construction began in Goebel Park and seven months later the Carroll Chimes Bell Tower was completed. Its version of the pied piper story features motorized figurines cast in clay made in fiber glass, and covered by polyurethane. Forty-three bells fill the top. When the tower first opened to tourist during a time in which Covington first hoped to turn Mainstrasse into a tourist destination (although with an original intent of a German-themed community like Frankenmuth, Michigan), the bells were played manually by a performer at a piano. They are electronically programmed now, though at Tuesday’s event Latonia businessman Marvin Wischer tickled the ivories for the crowd.
 








 






























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