16 September 2007

Blessing


The little church is around the corner of Madison Avenue, at E. 29th, just barely.
When it was new, one hundred and fifty years ago, it was on the outskirts of the city with nothing but farmland and trees to the north. Now, of course, it is southern Mid Town Manhattan, and walking distance from the hotel off Herald Square.

Not that it wasn't impossible to get turned around walking there; I missed Mad Ave altogether and walked the six blocks down-and-over in the manner of a rook's move on a chessboard, and my son and I chugged up the block from the east with sweat beginning to run down the collar of my starched shirt.

I thought we might have shown up a week too late when the block where the Little Church was supposed to be- the construction guys were swarming over some historic brickwork, and there was an ominous-looking protective scaffold around the historic brick gate.

So much of the city seems to be under construction simultaneously that it is a little bewildering. There are awnings and poles everywhere you walk in Mid Town, making it impossible to see the signs affixed to the buildings above.

I saw my sister waiting under one of the awnings, clutching the programs for the ceremony, next to the ruins of the Parish House.

Thank God we were still early. The wedding party was just starting to gather in the dooryard garden in front of the Church of the Transfiguration.
 
Sixty years ago, almost to the minute, our father and mother waited nervously in the garden for their appointed moment in The Brides Chapel. The wedding party then was smaller than the one this afternoon, though three of the original participants were here; Mom and Dad, of course, and Ray the Best Man, who had introduced them more than a half century before.

The Maid of Honor is no longer with us, though her three children were there, and a generous sampling of the seven grandchildren of their union, and the unions of the brothers and sisters in honor of this moment. This celebration was not just for the survival and commitment of one couple, but for the whole generation that is now just the two of them.

We stood in the garden, waiting for two o'clock.

The church itself is not an imposing place, though its history dates back to before the Civil War. It was built in the gothic manner, of handsome brick, and grew over time as the congregation did. Rector Houghton, who served 49 years in this church, was described as the first Saint of the Episcopal Church in America. He is said to have grown the place in the manner of a rapidly spreading holy zucchini. The door before which we gathered was part of the original building, and was first used as a parish schoolroom for boys, girls having no need for formal education at the time.

To accommodate additional worshippers, a gable-windowed second story was added in 1852 and the school moved upstairs. Later the second story became the guildhall of an organization known as the Episcopal Actors' Guild of America.

Therein lies a good part of the legend of the Church.   In 1870, the profession of the thespian was not held in high repute; one of the great actors of the day had recently shot President Lincoln, after all, and theater people in general was considered to be populated by rogues and women of low repute.

In that year, a man named Joseph Jefferson was attempting to arrange the funeral of actor George Holland at a main-line church near Madison Avenue. He was brusquely told that there was “a little church around the corner where they do that sort of thing,"
 
Jefferson is said to have exclaimed, "God Bless the Little Church Around the Corner!" and the name, and the association with the people of the theater continues to this day. The Episcopal Actors' Guild was founded in 1923, and fifty years later the Little Church was declared a United States Landmark.

The willingness of the Little Church to accommodate the needs of the ordinary New Yorker also became legendary. The Rector joined us in his robes of office a few minutes before the ceremony to chat, and heard us all to our appointed places. The Sexton hovered behind, silent and dark, and held all the keys to the building.

Andrew St. John is only the seventh Rector in the history of the Little Church. He came to New York via a circuitous route from his native Melbourne. He is a bit of an odd duck, being both an Australian and a lawyer before accepting a calling to the Episcopal Priesthood. He is a hearty man, who looks like he enjoyed cricket, with a bluff smile and a gentle voice. He is single, though he has family in town; two of his nieces have also come all the way from south Australia to live right here in New York.

He assuaged our concerns about the demolition in progress. It was only the Parish House that was coming down, not the historic sanctuary. The congregation had come to an arraignment with a developer to trade the land under the Parish house for the right to throw up a fifty-story condominium. In exchange, the Church will get the first four floors, rent-free, and I suspect enough cash to keep the ministry solvent for the rest of the century.

Rector St. John also described the romantic history that has become associated with the Bride's Chapel, which some of us were about to re-enter for the first time in sixty years. IN the depths of the Depression, the Little Church took on the mission of providing a dignified and affordable place for couples to wed.   It was the subject of a New Yorker Magazine cover in 1934, Rector St. John said, and when the war was over the demand for weddings was so crushing that lines of couples gathered in this very garden, the bell tolling joyfully every fifteen minutes or so, every day of the week except Sunday mornings.

“There are many who return here,” he said. “Just last week we blessed a couple who were celebrating their sixty-second anniversary, and we have many children of those marriages who come as well. There are people from all fifty states who were married here in the heyday, and many overseas as well who consider this a special place.”

At precisely two o'clock, the silent Sexton waved at us to enter the Church, and thirty of us filed in. The wood panelling was dark and ornately carved. The main sanctuary was to the right, and the Bride's Chapel to the left. It had been constructed originally as a memorial to the first Rector of the Little Church, and extensively redecorated in 1940, on the eve of the war.

The pews are divided into little boxes able to hold three worshippers.
I sat next to my brother, halfway back in the small chapel and turned to see our folks take their positions at the aisle.

There was water damage from intrusion around one of the eight stained glass windows that celebrates the Life of Christ that fronts the street, the oak veneer peeling up like a banana leaf. Otherwise, the place was exactly the same as it was in 1947, when the new world was exhaling for the first time after the great darkness.

The Rector took up his place before the Brides' Altar, which was constructed with funds contributed by the tens of thousands of couples joined in holy matrimony in the chapel. The tabernacle doors of the altar gleamed in gold and are adorned with jewels contributed by brides, a custom which has gone out of favor in these late days.

Set into the altar are three carvings of black oak, said to have been brought across the sea from a deconsecrated Scottish Abbey. Above them is a painting on wood depicting the   “Betrothal of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph,” flanked by adoring angels.

The Rector cleared his throat, and said a brief homily about life and the strength of marriage as he asked Mom and Dad to walk down the aisle. Dad had Mom by the arm, and I could almost see the slim young woman from Ohio and the dashing thin Navy Pilot as they passed.

The tears did not really start until I saw Dad struggle to get down on his knees next to Mom, and Rector St. John assisted him to the cushion. There was a piece that the bride and groom were supposed to read, but Dad could not see the words, and as usual Mom took care of it, reading the text in her clear high voice.

There was not a dry eye in the house when they walked back up the aisle, arm in arm. The Clexton pushed a button unobtrusively next to the door, and the bell began to ring. It is the same bell, with the same deep tone of joy that had rung for them sixty years before.

Outside, we got organized in the garden for the walk down to the Brassierie Les Halles on Park Avenue South, where we were going to host a little reception. The original reception had been at a place called The White Turkey, but it did not have the staying power of the marriage and was long gone.

There would be another event that night hosted by the Cousins in the open-air restaurant in Bryant Park. For the moment, though, everyone seemed a little dazed by the power of the human heart, and the kindness of the Little Church.

One of the cousins leaned over and gave me a light tap on the upper arm.

“So, now you're legitimate? It's about time.” All I could do was smile, and listen to the bell ring.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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