A little break from Paranapiacaba pictures...

This clock was installed in 1935 at Antônio Prado square, in front of the Martinelli Building in Sao Paulo, by the Ad Executive Octávio de Nichile, one of the first to come with the idea to display Ads below public clocks in Brazil.

About the Building: São Paulo's transition from a horizontal urban landscape to the vertical metropolis it is today started with the Martinelli Building. The downtown area, including Avenida São João and the Sé Church, the Cantareira Range and the Jaraguá Peak are some of the landmarks which open up before visitors to the terrace on the 26th floor.

Built by Count Giuseppe Martinelli, who arrived in Brazil as an immigrant from Tuscany in 1870, the Martinelli was opened in 1929 with 12 floors after four years under construction. Works continued until 1934, when the building reached its definitire shape with 30 floors and a height of 427 feet.

The Count strived to reassure his contemporaries of the new creation's safety by living in the top floors with his family. A sumptuous movie theater, tea rooms and a hotel were some of the skyscraper's top attractions. Unfortunately, the Martinelli family wouldn't enjoy their headquarters for very long: the crack of 1929 forced the Count to sell part of the enterprise to the Italian government. After World War II, Brazil claimed it back.

Decadence loomed in the building's history. During the 1960s and 1970s, it was taken over by squatters and lurid anecdotes about that phase include tales of people raising pigs on the terrace and nine floors' worth of garbage in a vertical ventilation tunnel.

During the administration of Mayor Olavo Setúbal, the Martinelli was renovated. Further restoration begun in 2010 is going on as of this writing. One of the notable recent improvements is the restoration of the terrace's floor tiles, which were ordered from the same company which produced them in the 1920s.