While the debt continues to grow, the ticker that estimates the current national figure is temporarily coming down this month. The National Debt Clock at 1133 Sixth Avenue will be moved on June 8 to make way for a new entrance at the Durst Organization’s building just one block away to One Bryant Park (aka the Bank of America Tower), the spot where the original clock first stood, as the Post reported. Real estate developer Seymour Durst first put up the ticker on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street in 1989, when the debt was a mere $3 trillion. Today’s debt totals over $19 trillion, with each family’s average share more than $168,000, according to data from the US Treasury.
One Bryant Park, on the right
The original clock was made up of 306 old-fashioned light bulbs and when the debt started falling, the ticker was unplugged and draped with a red, white and blue curtain in 2000. Then as the debt started rising again in 2002, it was reactivated. Durst promised the clock would stay up “as long as the debt or the city lasts…if it bothers people, then it’s working.”
The old-fashioned clock was replaced by a more digital version after the Dursts demolished a low-scale building to make way for One Bryant Park. Douglas Durst, Seymour’s son who took over the company after his father’s death in 1995, had to add another digit to the clock after the debt soared past $10 trillion in 2008. The clock is moving to make way for the building’s tenants, Take-Two Interactive, a software company who created “Grand Theft Auto” and recently signed a 15-year-lease in the building.