Anniversary Day

On this September 11, Trinity Church opened an exhibit at St. Paul's Chapel to honor the ministry to ground-zero workers that began there after the horrors of that September 11. St. Paul's is different now, reports Ed Stannard. Yet memories and emotions hover, ready to settle and catch visitors unaware.

A banner announces the exhibit at St. Paul's.

For the newly minted heroes -- firefighters, police, EMTs and rescue workers for whom St. Paul's was a place apart for eight long months -- returning on September 11 was a way to thank those who had served them.

For the volunteers who gave up their time, social lives, and for some, even their jobs, it was a chance to remember the rewards of service, and to reunite with those they once worked alongside.

For the tourists and New Yorkers who filed in, some with tears, some with simple curiosity, it was a chance to see the chapel they had heard so much about.

St. Paul's, the 1766 chapel of Trinity Church where George Washington had a pew, now honors the ordinary people who became extraordinary: the podiatrists (who worked over calluses and sores in the pew of the Father of this country), the musicians, the chiropractors, the priests, the massage therapists, the food-service workers.

The chapel also honors those they ministered to: the workers who came from the site of the World Trade Center dirty, exhausted, hurt, traumatized, and grateful for the hallowed space in which they could eat, talk, sleep, and grieve.

For them, it is still "heaven's outpost," as firefighter Robert Senatore of Ladder Company 152 in Queens described it. In a message to the volunteers, he had written, "By entering through the gates out front, one can leave behind the terror and destruction. It has also allowed me a place to sit and feel the presence of my fallen brother firefighters missing in the pile."

New Memorial

After a recent restoration made necessary by months of round-the-clock use, the walls inside St. Paul's are freshly painted in pink, blue and white, the marble floor is polished to a shine, and outside, the churchyard sod has been replaced.

The backs of the chapel pews have been left untouched, however, and they are deeply scored by boots, buckles and badges -- marks left by sleeping workers. "These are real marks of their ministry, sacramental marks," says the Rev. Samuel Johnson Howard, vicar of Trinity Church, of the decision to leave the pews as is.

The Visitors

The nave during a minute of silence.

The doors opened at 8 a.m., and the line continued all day. Many visitors were as composed as if viewing an art exhibit; others emerged with teary red eyes.

"I thought it was very moving," said Nancy Aronson of Bethesda, Md. She, along with five family members and friends, held a photo of Myra Joy Aronson of Boston, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower. "It meant a lot to us," continued Nancy. "Part of my sister-in-law's remains were found, so what the rescue workers did was very important."

Much of the day was typical New York street theater: A flutist played "Amazing Grace" incessantly. Visitors came out of the chapel and immediately made calls on their cell phones. A Statue of Liberty balloon hovered above the people's memorial on the fence, which continued to attract mementos deposited by passersby. At one point, fire engines screamed past, echoes of the day a year past.

Overcome by Grief

"They killed so many people!" a woman wailed from behind St. Paul's, as she looked over the chapel's ancient headstones to the site where the towers once stood. As the Rev. Rand Frew, a longtime chapel volunteer, comforted her, she proved inconsolable, sobbing until there were no more tears to sob.

Every half hour, a bell was rung, a moment of silence was kept, and a volunteer said a prayer-the pattern simple and holy. At 10:39 am, the moment when the second of the Twin Towers collapsed, St. Paul's bells joined others throughout the city and tolled for a full minute.

The uniformed forces came from all over the city and from far away. A contingent of police arrived from Chicago; a number of British bobbies, who had attended a service at Trinity Church, came by in their distinctive round-topped helmets.

Sandy DeMiri, an emergency medical technician with Battalion 26, spent a long time on the portico, examining a timeline display of the previous year's events. She had come about twice a week to St. Paul's, during the ministry. "It was very comforting and I just basically came over to sit down, rest, have some soup," she said.

Cyrilla Etienne traveled from Boston to see the chapel that gave life so close to the site of so much death. A friend was on one of the planes that crashed into the towers. Her friend's wife had given birth a few months before. Etienne lingered at each station, imagining what had taken place.

"It's hard to describe, kind of surreal," she said of the exhibit's effect on her. She tried to picture "the person serving the soup and giving the fireman the soup and looking into the fireman's weary face," or the masseuse "feeling the pain while she's trying to make them feel better."

She tried to visualize it all: "The dirt and destruction, how it affected all the people who came to volunteer. It's amazing the people who came out of nowhere just to volunteer and give their time."

Many who returned were people who had been drawn to St. Paul's during the past year by that need to help.

"I started out doing once a week at the coffee table," said Dave, who would only give his first name. He then became the "Thursday night dinner captain." Soon he was at St. Paul's nearly every day, and sometimes in the middle of the night, thanks to an understanding boss and a sympathetic wife, who was also a volunteer.

The hardest time, though, may have been after the chapel closed. "I felt guilty about not being here; I had crying jags," Dave said. "The place gets into your blood." Dave came by the chapel every day after it closed; it was ten weeks before he could let go enough to stay away. On this September 11, he was back to help again.

Ed Stannard is former news editor of Episcopal Life and a member of Trinity Church on the Green, New Haven, Conn.

Posted on September 18, 2002