You hear the bell tower before you see it. The bell tower is the part of the building that speaks to the city. The bell tower rises above the roofline and the rising above means the sound clears the surrounding buildings and travels across the streets and over the rooftops and into the windows of houses where people check the time. The bell tower told the time before the clock. The bell tower called the faithful before the loudspeaker. The bell tower warned the village before the siren. Every function the bell tower served has been replaced by technology and the replacing by technology has not killed the bell tower because the bell tower was never just about the function. The bell tower is about the sound arriving from above.

The bell tower of Notre-Dame de Paris held Emmanuel and Emmanuel is a thirteen ton bourdon cast in sixteen eighty five that survived the fire of April fifteenth twenty nineteen while the spire fell and the roof collapsed and eight hundred years of oak burned. Emmanuel survived because the bell tower survived. The two western towers of Notre-Dame are built of limestone blocks four feet thick and the four feet thick meant the fire could not reach the bells. Emmanuel rang on D-Day. Emmanuel rang for the liberation of Paris. Emmanuel rang for the death of every pope and every president of France. The bourdon is the deepest bell in the tower. The bourdon sounds an F-sharp and the F-sharp has not changed since Louis the Fourteenth was king. A bell's pitch is determined by its profile and its metal and its profile and metal do not change. Emmanuel will sound the same F-sharp when the cathedral's grandchildren are old. The bell does not age. The bell does not forget its note.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is a bell tower. It was never meant to lean. Construction began in eleven seventy three and by eleven seventy eight the tower had begun to tilt because the foundation was three meters deep on soil that was soft clay on one side and harder on the other. Construction stopped for a century. When it resumed the builders compensated by making the columns on the high side taller than the columns on the low side so the tower curves as it rises. The tower leans at an angle of three point ninety seven degrees. The seven bells at the top range from the smallest at six hundred kilograms to the largest at three and a half tons. The largest bell was cast in fifteen fifty five. For centuries the bells were not rung because the ringing might increase the lean. The bells are rung now by electronic hammers that strike without swinging and the striking without swinging means the tower hears its own bells without being shaken by them. The most famous bell tower in the world is famous for its flaw. The lean is an accident. The beauty of the lean is not.

Philadelphia's Independence Hall bell tower held the Liberty Bell until the crack silenced it and the silence became louder than the ringing. The bell was cast in London in seventeen fifty two by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and the Whitechapel foundry also cast Big Ben. The bell cracked on its first test ring. It was recast twice in Philadelphia by Pass and Stow and the recasting by Pass and Stow is inscribed on the bell along with Leviticus twenty five ten. Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. The bell cracked again in the eighteen forties and the cracking again meant the bell could not ring for the funeral of Chief Justice John Marshall in eighteen thirty five. The crack runs from the lip to the crown. The bell has not been struck since. The Liberty Bell sits on the ground floor now in a glass pavilion on Chestnut Street and the sitting on the ground floor means the bell has left the tower. A bell without its tower is a bell without its voice. The Liberty Bell is the most silent bell in America and the silence is its sermon.

You listen. The bell tower speaks. The bell tower. The limestone towers at Notre-Dame that held Emmanuel through fire. The leaning tower at Pisa that curves to correct its own flaw. The empty tower at Independence Hall whose bell sits mute on the ground floor. The part of the building that was built to make sound. The sound travels. The sound says the hour. The sound says come. The sound says something has happened. The bell tower stands and the bell rings and the city hears and the hearing is the oldest broadcast.