wfn.org | A visit to Ground Zero

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2001-276

A visit to Ground Zero

by Mary Donovan

     St. Paul's Chapel stands directly across the street from what was the World 
Trade Center Complex.  The graveyard backs onto that street, with the chapel 
farther east on Broadway.  Miraculously, St. Paul's appears to have suffered 
little damage. None of the windows were broken and the gorgeous Waterford 
chandeliers (which had been carefully taken down and hidden all during World War 
II) are still intact, although their brass connections are tarnished to a dull 
gray.  The Rev. Lyndon Harris, the chapel's vicar, speculated that the trees in 
the graveyard saved the church from the ravages of the explosions. One of the 
giant sycamores at the back of the space was totally uprooted by the force of the 
explosion and its leaves may well have shielded the church..

     St. Paul's Chapel, built in 1766, is the oldest public building in 
continuous use in the city of New York.  It was in this chapel that George 
Washington prayed, just after his inauguration as the first President of the 
United States.  And that chapel today is a refreshment center in the midst of the 
reclamation work.

     The front of the churchyard is a solid line of port-a-potties.  At the one 
large open space at the end, a welcome sign urges workers to enter the church, 
eat, rest and pray.

     The portico of the chapel has two huge charcoal grills where Episcopal 
volunteers stand flipping hamburgers and handing them out to workers for whom a 
hot meal is the ultimate luxury.  Sodas, water, juices are stacked high on one 
table--snacks and nuts and candy bars on another.  Large insulated urns provide 
the gallons of coffee that keep so many of the crews going.

Church on the scene

     Inside the church there are medical supplies, including bandages, creams, 
ointments, aspirin and extra hard hats and face masks.  Clean socks, 
toothbrushes, batteries of every size fill other tables.  The nave of the church 
is dim--for the electricity has not yet been restored to St. Paul's.  Large 
votive candles flicker on the altar and on many of the side railings.

     But as your eyes become accustomed to the dimness, you see people in many of 
the pews sitting mostly alone, sometimes two or three people chatting quietly.  
And then as you walk closer, you see others sleeping here and there, spread out 
on the pews covered with blankets and makeshift pillows.

     There are priests here and there, talking quietly to police or construction 
workers, or helping to direct the parish volunteers as each team arrives with new 
questions: "Where is the catsup? Who's got the identification badges?  Has anyone 
got a cell phone that works?"  And behind it all is a cleanup crew, mopping, 
dusting, carefully cleaning off the myriad plaques and historical markers that 
line the walls of this historic building.

     This is where the Episcopal Church is at the disaster site. Right in the 
center of the action.  But the strategies to keep this group going involved a 
much larger response.  It began at Seamen's Church Institute (SCI), an Episcopal 
organization that has ministered to the needs of seamen in Manhattan, Port 
Newark, and many other parts of this country.  The Institute's center is across 
the tip of Manhattan, near the East River and the South Street Seaport. 

     When the call to evacuate lower Manhattan came, the institute's director, 
the Rev. Peter Larom, and the staff decided not to evacuate but rather to remain 
open to offer what ministries were needed.  The building's chapel stayed open 
with priests available day and night.  The upstairs lunchroom remained open, 
quickly exhausted the supplies on hand and soon became a collection point for 
emergency food and beverages.  The upstairs offices and showers were made 
available to rescue workers as a place for a change of clothing or rest. For the 
first few days, the institute did not have telephone service or electricity but 
they did have large charcoal grills on which food could be cooked.

     To mobilize volunteers, students, faculty and staff from the General 
Theological Seminary took on the task of scheduling volunteers and getting them 
to the area.  Episcopal Charities opened a relief fund and quickly collected cash 
for necessary supplies.  With the cooperation of the police, a route from General 
to St. Paul's Church was set up and a van from the seminary, sometimes driven by 
Jenny Ewing, the dean's wife, ferried the workers to the disaster area.  Other 
volunteers at GTS called local churches and gradually New York's parishes took on 
the responsibility of assembling 24 hour teams of parishioners.  The two centers-
-at St. Paul's and at SCI--have remained open 24 hours a day staffed by these 
volunteers.  Tonight, Sunday, September 23, the 24-hour staffing will end but a 
dawn to dark ministry will continue.

SCI still serving 

     The SCI location remains critical because it is close to disaster 
headquarters set up both by the police and by the national guard.

     The lunch room, now thankfully with electricity restored, continues to be 
full of men and women in the blue police uniforms or the National Guard khakis, 
genuinely enjoying a chance to sit and chat and eat warm food. Priests are 
available for counsel in and out of the chapel. Yesterday four chaplains arrived 
from Michigan, Iowa, Maine, as well as several New York rectors and vicars.

     The supplies that have been ferried to SCI and from there to St. Paul's, are 
in ample abundance everywhere-so much so that the Rev. Jean Smith, SCI's 
chaplain, admits that the next need for volunteers will be to figure out how to 
pack up and store the unused supplies, perhaps using some of the donated socks 
and toiletries to fill the Christmas packages for seamen that go out each 
December from the institute.

     A special SCI newsletter, with graphic photos of the Episcopal Church's 
ministry in this crisis, is on its way to all SCI branches and supporters. 

--Mary Donovan and her husband, Bishop Herbert Donovan, visited the area around 
the World Trade Center and this is her eyewitness account.