Bundy Museum of History and Art (4/11/2023)

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Binghamton, NY is home of the Bundy Museum of History and Art located in a complex at 127-133 Main Street.

We started our tour at 133 Main Street (1965) with
Admissions and the Gift Shop 

At 131 Main Street is a two-flat Queen Anne that
produces rental income

The Harlow E Bundy House (1892, by Elfred Hull Bartoo
in Queen Anne style), at 129 Main Street, features
original woodwork, stained glass, and furniture and
décor of the period, where we had a guided tour

Harlow Bundy and his brother, jeweler and inventor Willard L Bundy, began a company in 1889 to manufacture time recording clocks. By 1900 they merged with two other companies to form the International Time Recording Company (ITR). In 1906, Harlow Bundy moved operations to Endicott, NY. In 1911, another merger created the new Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) holding company with Harlow Bundy as vice-president. CTR was renamed the International Business Machines (IBM) in 1924.

The Parlor

The Dining Room

The Dining Room fireplace;
all the fireplaces are original

Bundy Memorial Table (1907, by Tiffany), a
communion table donated by Willard Bundy to
South Presbyterian Church in Syracuse, who donated
the table to the museum when they closed in 2006

Bundy Memorial Table detail

Note the gingerbread fretwork in the doorway

A Tiffany chandelier in the Front Hall,
and the stained glass of the front door

The Front Hall walls were lined with Lincrusta, a
deeply embossed wallcovering, made from a paste of
gelled linseed oil and wood flour spread onto a paper base,
which is then rolled between steel rollers, one of
which has a pattern embossed upon it

The Grand Staircase

Stained glass windows of the Grand Staircase

The room for the two daughters in the round turret

The Master Bedroom is wallpapered,
and the ceiling is painted in period style

The Master Bedroom fireplace

Art Deco-like light fixture on the third floor,
which is now used as an art gallery

The Whispering Gallery is
in the top of the turret

The Anna Palmer House (1889, by
Audley Reynolds) houses administration
and produces rental income

The Carriage House and Annex (viewed from rear
in order to see the carriage house) was our next stop

A reproduction of the Bundy Manufacturing Company
booth at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago

Bundy Key Recorders (on left c 1897-1900,
and on right c 1891-1893) where each
employee had a key to clock in and out of work

ITR Card Attendance Recorder (c 1907)

IBM "International" Weight-driven
Master Clock (c 1941)

Top: ITR Job Cost Recorder (c 1922), and
below: IBM "International" Trigger Trip
Job Time Recorder (c 1946)

Dial Recorder (by Dey Time Register
Company that was bought out by ITR),
where each employee was assigned a
button on the outer ring and used the ball
on the moveable handle to push his
particular spot to register his time in and out

Burrough's Adding Machine (c 1892-1920), which
out-competed Harlow Bundy's adding machine of 1905

Also in the Annex was the Rod Serling Archive,
with props from the television series The Twilight Zone

Rod Serling was born in Syracuse, NY, and his family moved to Binghamton when he was two-years old. He graduated from Binghamton High School in 1943, then entered the United States Army and served in the Pacific Theater. After recovering from his wounds, he attended Antioch College in Ohio and became active in the campus radio station. His career started with writing radio program scripts, and moved on to writing television scripts. He is best known for creating and producing The Twilight Zone. Serling won five Emmys, one of which was for The Twilight Zone.

This is the same model of Royal typewriter used by Rod Serling

A replica Dummy like that used by
Cliff Robertson as a ventriloquist
in Episode 98 of The Twilight Zone

Dictaphone that belonged to Rod Serling; he would
dictate his scripts to be typed by a secretary

Also in the Annex was the vintage 1930s
barbershop that once stood across the
street from the IBM facility in Endicott, NY

A mural (2021, by @greig3865)
of Rod Serling outside the Annex

Our last stop on the Bundy Museum campus
was at 32 Cedar Street, home of
Binghamton Photo, with a community
darkroom and gallery space

The photo exhibit by Eli Foote was titled Play Well,
which is the meaning of the Danish words leg godt,
from which the name Lego was created

One room had a display of camera equipment, most
of which came from the Anthony & Scovill Company
or ANSCO, based in Binghamton, NY

An Eastman 16mm sound telecine projector

Meanwhile we were listening to the WBDY local
community radio station broadcasting from upstairs

Time to head home!