Friday, December 10, 1999
Peace bell passes test
Starring role on Jan. 1 is ensured
BY TERRY FLYNN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
NEWPORT — If the World Peace Bell was rung unofficially with its clapper for the first time, would anyone hear it?
The 33-ton bell, which will be 1 year old Saturday, was tested recently to make certain it will function properly to ring in the millennium.
“Yes, we rang it last week,” Northern Kentucky businessman and Millennium Monument Co. President Wayne Carlisle said Thursday as he stood next to the 12-by-12-foot bronze bell. “We needed to know that everything was working properly.”
Officially, the World Peace Bell will be rung with its 3-ton steel clapper for the first time at midnight Dec. 31. It has been rung numerous times since its arrival in New Orleans last summer from France with a specially designed striker that delivers a blow to the outside of the bell.
Mr. Carlisle, who spearheaded the design and construction of the bell and its pavilion at Fourth and York streets with his leadership and his checkbook, talked about his plans for the bell and his continued hope to build a monument tower on the same block as the bell pavilion.
“I think this is the quickest year I've ever spent,” the Carlisle Construction Co. boss said.
“It's hard to believe that the bell was cast last Dec. 11 (1998) in France. Now we're just three weeks away from the millennium celebration.”
Mr. Carlisle also said he has not forgotten about plans, announced nearly three years ago, to build a 1,000-foot-high millennium monument tower on the same block as the bell pavilion.
“Our goal is still to build the tower on this site,” he said. “We stopped working on that because we didn't want anything to get in the way of the bell and the New Year's celebration.”
He said he wants to resume working on a package to finance the project next summer. Estimates are that the tower, which would include an observation deck near the top and restaurants and shops near the base, would cost about $100 million.
“We don't have the financing,” he admitted. “The total package to build the tower is still out there to be completed. But all our thoughts now are on the bell.”
The World Peace Bell will be the center of a day- and night-long party at the pavilion and the nearby Syndicate restaurant on Dec. 31.
Festivities begin at 6 a.m. when the bell will ring (with the striker) to mark the New Year in the Fiji Islands. It will be rung thereafter each hour on the hour to mark another time zone, and finally will be rung with the clapper at midnight.
“We will have a peace parade, involving people from a number of religious denominations, during the afternoon,” Mr. Carlisle said. “We think as many as 1,500 people could take part in the parade.”
New Year's Eve parties will take place that evening at the Syndicate, with prices ranging from $125 to $1,000 per couple.
“We have really had a great response to the event at the Syndicate,” Mr. Carlisle said. “We've sold 90 percent of the available space.”
At 11 that night, the 54-foot-high bell pavilion will ignite in a wall of fireworks, followed by the lighting of an eternal flame of peace. Fireworks also will follow the ringing of the bell at midnight.
“If everything goes as we expect, there should be 25,000 to 30,000 people taking part in the celebration,” Mr. Carlisle said.
“We may not be as big as Times Square (in New York), but our meaning of peace is bigger than anything happening anywhere else.”
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