Christ Church Update

Photo courtesy Marie Viljoen @ http://66squarefeet.blogspot.com/

Many neighbors have been inquiring about Christ Church since the recent lightening storm that caused major damage and resulted in terrible tragedy.

Christ Church's Father Ron Lau gave us this update today.

The tower is being partially dismantled (and the stones stored) until the engineer deems it safe to open the street and our buildings. All four pinnacles are down now. This was the slow part, as they are round and the basket is rectangular. Now that is done they have commenced dismantling the walls and buttresses, probably down to just below the bell chamber louvers, or perhaps the clock faces, depends on what they find as they work. The tower is massive (walls are approximately 8 ft thick at buttress base and 4 ft at bell louvers and 3 ft up top). The long range plan, from the engineer's point of view, is once the tower is stable/safe, reopen the Parish House (offices and preschool), make a repair to the roof and the NE corner walls, remove the rubble from the church (75% of the rubble is in the church), clean the church, repair the organ (which is now full of grit), and then address the tower restoration. I have been asked to refer all questions in the future to The Rev. Canon Shawn P. Duncan, Canon for Media and Mission, who serves as Chief Information Officer for the Diocese of Long Island. sduncan@dioceseli.org