Always one for flamboyance, Captain Isaac Emerson came back from a trip to Italy and decided he wanted to build a new factory in downtown Baltimore and that it should look like Florence’s fabulous town hall, the Palazzo Vecchio. Completed in 1911, the tower’s four clocks each measure 24 feet across, a foot more London’s Big Ben, and the tower itself was the tallest building in Baltimore at the time. Emerson, the man who became wealthy from his invention of Bromo Seltzer and gave us the slogan “if you keep late hours for society’s sake, Bromo Seltzer will cure that headache,” was quite proud.

Our tour through the building will include a trip up into the clockworks at the top to look at the tick-tock operation in process and peer out the translucent windows. We’ll also stop in at the museum room that holds the world’s largest collection ephemera from Captain Emerson, Bromo Seltzer, and Maryland Glass. And along the way, we’ll get a taste of the newest art that comes from the Tower’s artists: it is now home to dozens of local art studios. If you’ve wondered what goes on in the Bromo Seltzer Tower and how the imposing clocks actually work, now’s your chance!