I find it appalling that the owners of Midtown came together with the Greater Rochester Airport authority, of all people, to turn over possession of the Clock of Nations. Really, truly, was there no one else, nowhere else in all of Rochester to transfer the storied clock?

News reports have it that the clock will reside at the airport for the next four years, until space is made in 2012 to relocate the clock once again, this time to a new, possibly permanent home at the Golisano Children's Hospital at Strong.

The Greater Rochester Airport already had a clock in its possession: Lunar Eclipse, by Wendell Castle, commissioned as one of seven pieces of public art to be installed in the airport at the time of its renovation in the early 1990s.

Lunar Eclipse was once displayed prominently in the middle of the central concourse observation area, right in front of The Monument, the glass window designed by Peter McGrain. What guarantees do the citizens of Rochester and Monroe County have that our illustrious county executive won't put the Clock of Nations into storage just like she did the Lunar Eclipse?

CHRIS FRIDD, ROCHESTER