An antique clock on the Santa Fe Plaza that hasn't worked for a month should be keeping time again soon.

The 45-pound brass inner workings of what is known as the Spitz Clock are gently ticking on a stand in a crowded workshop on Canyon Road. Clocksmith Chester Johnson plans to re-install the equipment later this week behind a door on the clock's base, but it won't be an easy job.

"It is very awkward," he said. "It is like trying to rig a ship inside of a wastebasket. It is so cramped."

But fixing the 1880s-era clock over the last month was a treat nonetheless, said Johnson, who has been listed in Santa Fe's phone book as a clock repairman for more than 25 years and who once served as an apprentice to the clockmaker for the queen of England.

"It was a pleasure working on this because it's so plain and so basic and so functional," he said.

The clock — which looks like a huge, gold pocket watch on a green-painted tower — was a gift from the Spitz brothers, who ran a jewelry store on the Plaza through the early part of the 20th century.

Since 1974, the clock has been on the northwest corner of the intersection at Lincoln and Palace avenues near the New Mexico Museum of Art, but its original spot was in front of the jewelry store, on the San Francisco Street side of the Plaza. Newspaper archives indicate the store's first outdoor clock was not functional and the working version was installed around 1900.

In 1916, one of the city's earliest motorized vehicles reportedly crashed into the clock, knocking it from its base and ruining its works. A nearly identical replacement reportedly arrived the same year from Kansas City.

Bernard Spitz donated the piece to the "citizens of Santa Fe" in 1967, the year it was removed from its original location because of the construction of a portal over the sidewalk. Seven years later, it was erected where it stands today.

The clock is a rare and wonderful part of the city's history, said Michael Cochran, a gilder who restored gold leaf on the clock's body about 17 years ago and will take up the task again sometime after Fiesta de Santa Fe.

"The reason it is such a beautiful piece is because Howard Clock Company in Boston was known for their pocket watches and their monument clocks," he said. "This is an example of a pocket watch sculpture on a monument clock. And also it's the only one left in public that has the original workings."

The city periodically pays for maintenance and restoration on the clock, and a parks worker visits the Plaza every five days or so to keep it properly wound. Johnson said the latest problem with the clock likely occurred when someone wound it too tightly.

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.