BY Yannic Rack | If you get out at Fulton St. subway station, your view of the Freedom Tower is partly obstructed by all-round scaffolding on St. Paul’s Chapel, but the church still planned to ring its Bell of Hope Thursday to honor the thousands killed on Sept. 11.
Construction work on the church tower’s exterior began in August and the scaffolding will remain in place until the end of the year, a spokesperson for Trinity Church/St. Paul’s Chapel said earlier this week.
There was to be no interference with the Sept. 11 service, however, and the traditional ringing of the bell was expected to take place at 8:46 a.m. on Thursday in the west churchyard.
St. Paul’s Chapel, right, with the Freedom Tower, a.k.a. One World Trade Center, left.
“The scaffolding is allowing workers to complete three projects: replacing the lead-coated copper in the steeple, restoring the existing clock and mechanics, and repairing and restoring the existing masonry,” the spokesperson said.
The oldest surviving church building in Manhattan, St. Paul’s Chapel became a place of refuge for World Trade Center recovery workers in the direct aftermath of the Twin Tower attacks in 2001.
For months, the church, which was miraculously unharmed, provided meals and beds as well as counseling and prayer services, while visitors turned the fence around the church into an impromptu memorial.
The church was partly shielded from falling debris by a 70-year-old sycamore in its churchyard. A bronze sculpture of the felled tree’s roots and stump still serves as a memorial in a Trinity Church courtyard at the head of Wall St.
