“St. Paul’s will always be in my mind, heaven’s outpost.” These words, spoken by New York City firefighter Robert Senatore, refer to the Wall Street chapel that was built in 1766. That makes it the oldest church in New York and the only one to date from before the American Revolution.
Miraculously, it survived intact the destruction of the World Trade Center in September, 2001, despite being located only two blocks away.
I visited this small church two weeks ago, on my first visit to Manhattan since the great disaster. This contact with tragedy formed one event in a 48-hour stay in the city; by contrast, my other experiences while there proved entertaining and nostalgic.
When looking at the site of the two towers and later walking through the chapel, I felt anew some of the pity and fear of 9/11/01. In addition, seeing St. Paul’s gave me a new vision of the spiritual dimensions of the response made by so many men and women to unspeakable tragedy.
Of course, the debris of destruction has long since been cleared away and the surroundings of the Trade Center site are now neat and clean. But huge cavities remain where reconstruction continues. A crude cross made of steel beams, erected by a firefighter, stands in mute remembrance to those who lost their lives.
At St. Paul’s, the paper and other trash that once littered the churchyard outside are long gone and the chapel has now become a site of pilgrimage for visitors like me. But evidences of the crisis activity that once filled this space still remain. Black smudges on the backs of the pews, made by the boots of rescue workers, silently testify to their oftentimes heroic labors.
This sacred space became a place of refuge for workers where they received food, rest, supplies, and sympathetic attention. These human services at the chapel turned into a new and vital ministry where people serving others could themselves be served.
On this weekend, I would not see anything else to equal for human interest this area of lower Manhattan, the theater of events that now help define our new century. On other parts of this still-fabulous island, life has returned, if not to normal, at least to day to day existence, New York style.
But for me, being there invariably stirs some of the same magical feelings I had as a boy on my first visit. Then it was the World’s Fair of 1939 where I still remember feeling wonder, as we slowly circled around the General Motors futurama exhibit.
This time, I saw an old play which evoked that same era. “Dinner at Eight,” written by Edna Ferber and George Kaufman in 1932, is often hilarious but it also creaks by now, with some scenes moving altogether too slowly.
However, watching old pros work their magic on stage always delights me. Notably, the veteran actress, Marian Seldes, whose role allowed her to display the flamboyance at which she is so skilled, vindicated once more the esthetic pleasures of theater at its best.
A Sunday morning walk up Fifth Avenue brought me the subtle joys of being outside on a bracing winter’s day along one of the world’s great streets. I lingered to join children gazing at some of the fabulous window displays in the major department stores. Seeing Herr Drosselmeyer, Clara, the Mouse King and others go through their paces (thanks to hidden electronics) pleased me as much as the kids.
The usual holiday season sounds filled the air, but traffic noises were muted. As one of the taxi drivers informed me, the mayor has levied fines of $500 on them and other motorists who blow their horns needlessly. Mike Bloomberg, the new mayor, is a native of Medford, MA, where, surprisingly enough, he may have grown up on quiet streets.
My stroll down Fifth Avenue was not entirely frivolous. Partly to escape the cold, I dropped into St. Patrick’s Cathedral for Sunday worship. As usual, I was impressed by the astounding variety of people assembled in that sacred space and, for that time at least, achieving a unity that I found moving.
A reunion at lunch with a cousin also brought pleasure. I think of him as a young man but, like so many other people, he has entered into advanced middle age. When you stop seeing people for a while, that’s the sort of thing that happens.
This cousin knows the New York opera scene and also, with surprising versatility, the pop music scene as well. He loves Wagner and yet had a hand in the writing of the Broadway show Dance of the Vampires.
The occasion for this 48-hour visit to the Apple was a family wedding. It turned out to be a blast, provoking even the likes of me to fairly frenetic dancing. But that’s another story that has already entered the annals kept by my extended family.
Richard Griffin