A NEW YORK STATE OF GRACE
By Gretchen Fletcher
special correspondent
Sun-Sentinel, Florida
March 19 2006
One woman’s search for faith in the big city.
Granted, New York City is not known as a Mecca for pilgrims. If one
wanted to be a “traveler for religious reasons,” as the dictionary
defines the term, it would make better sense to go to one of the
new megachurches, perhaps in California, Texas, or somewhere in the
southern Bible Belt. But I was going to New York, and wondered if I
could find a place of inspiration and reverence.
My first stop was at MOBiA, the Museum of Bible Art. It occupies the
second floor of the American Bible Society near Columbus Circle.
There was an exhibit of primitive art by southern Christian artists
and one of ancient texts. I walked through the exhibit, “For Glory
and Beauty,” looking at some of the earliest written texts of the
Bible, goatskin scrolls and hand-illuminated manuscripts on vellum,
forerunners of the Gutenberg Bible I had seen the day before on
exhibit at the Public Library.
Leaving the museum, I thought the obvious place to go would be the
Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which I remembered from a childhood
trip as being awesome in the true sense of the word. The cathedral
wasn’t finished then, and it isn’t finished now. Its facade is still
shrouded in scaffolding, 113 years after its cornerstone was laid.
I had forgotten that shortly after 9-11 we had watched on TV as New
York’s fatigued firefighters struggled to carry hoses through the nave
to put out a fire we hoped was not the next wave of terrorism in the
city. It had actually been started by faulty wiring in the gift shop,
resulting in the fact that there was no gift shop open now, four years
later. Nor was the whole cathedral open to visitors; behind the altar
a blank, dark gray wall sealed off the once-beautiful apse, chancel,
and transept while they are being cleaned of soot and smoke damage.
I walked around what remained to be seen of the chapels in the
side bays, reading the guide sheet. The cathedral, Episcopal
in denomination, has something for everyone in its fervor to be
ecumenical. Hanging from the apex of the stone arches is a circle
of silk streamers (red, yellow, black and white), symbolizing the
races of man. American Indians are represented by a medicine wheel
of elk hide, wood and feathers hanging above the chapel dedicated
to athletes. The bronze statue of a buffalo in that chapel speaks of
strength as well as of the American West. Jews are represented with
a statue memorializing victims of the Holocaust who died at Auschwitz.
It stands in the Missionary Bay with memorials for Armenians,
victims of the Ottoman Empire’s genocide, and for Muslims who died
in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s.
Two of the most touching chapels are the ones housing the Medicine
Bay and the Labor Bay. The former holds a book of remembrance in
which are recorded names of those who have died of AIDS, read every
month in the worship service. The latter holds the Fireman’s Memorial,
which honors 12 firefighters who died in a fire in lower Manhattan in
1966. Of course, since then, grieving visitors have placed mementoes
of the 9-11 firefighters.
All this said, I still viewed the Cathedral, the largest Gothic
structure in the world, as more of a tourist attraction than a place to
“find religion.” The guide told me I could catch a bus on the corner
of Amsterdam and 110th that would take me right to the Cloisters (my
next stop). “Be sure you stop for a torte or coffee at the Hungarian
Pastry Shop across the street,” he said. “It’s been the setting in
several movies, including Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives.”
I admired the baked goods in the cases and ordered a Hungarian coffee,
which I drank while watching students from nearby Columbia University
tapping away on laptops. Then I went out to wait for the bus to the
Cloisters. I knew it would be a long trip, but I wasn’t expecting it
to take an hour.
The trip was worth the $1.50 in quarters, though, as it was an
opportunity to visit what I think of as the best “museum” in the city:
streets and neighborhoods full of people. My fellow passengers on this
summer morning were all young moms and dads escorting tots wearing
backpacks, talking about the day camps they were headed for.
The Cloisters, at the northern tip of Manhattan, is an off-campus
extension of the Metropolitan Museum. On land purchased by John D.
Rockefeller Jr., are reconstructed medieval chapels and monasteries
brought stone by stone from France and Spain. The Gothic and Romanesque
setting includes a room hung with the famous Unicorn tapestries whose
colors seem so vibrant it’s hard to believe they were woven around the
time Columbus was trying to get financing from Ferdinand and Isabella.
Surely I would have found inspiration here among the gardens and
fountains had I not been meeting a friend who broke the peace with
a litany of worries about health, finances and the state of the Union.
“Look,” I said. Across the courtyard from us a young priest in
clerical collar was attempting to lure sparrows to take bread from
his hand stretched out on the stone wall. A modern-day St. Francis,
he restored peace to the place.
The next day I was meeting another friend for lunch on second Avenue
and had just enough time to stop in at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on the
corner of Fifth Avenue and 51st Street. Surely, I would find what I
was looking for there — a moment of inspiration and reverence. But
first, of course, I couldn’t resist running into Saks. Then I picked
my way through the summer crowds on the cathedral steps, tourists with
tired feet and shopkeepers and office workers eating Sabrett hot dogs.
St. Pat’s looked just as I remembered it, even from the days when
my 6-year-old son had sat in a pew there and said, while craning
his neck to look up at the Gothic arches, “Whoever made this must
have been really creative!” Creative, yes. But I guess I was too
familiar with its beauty to feel much inspiration. Plus crowds of
shorts-clad tourists were wandering around with cameras, hardly
creating a reverent atmosphere.
I wished I were going to be in the city on a Sunday, as I had been
the year before when a friend took me to a Lutheran jazz service in
the church beneath the CityCorp Building. There, as her husband’s
trio played Body and Soul during Communion, street people, attracted
by the wailing clarinet, peered down at us through the window behind
the altar.
I walked on toward my appointed lunch, thinking that my visit to the
city was coming to an end and I had not found what I could call a
“religious experience.” On the corner of Park Avenue and 51st I saw
“Cafe St. Bart,” situated next to the Romanesque St. Bartholomew’s
church, with a dome and rose window. A notice board in front said:
SUMMER FESTIVAL OF SACRED MUSIC
SUNDAY AT 11 AM
MASS FOR FOUR VOICES
WILLIAM BYRD
How I wished I could come back to hear that!
I stepped into the dark church. In front of the gilded altar stood a
small group of people wearing shorts and holding open red books. I knew
right away what this was: a rehearsal for the concert! How lucky could
I be? I slid into a hard, straight-backed pew for my own concert under
the Byzantine half-dome filled with a gold leaf and glass mosaic of
the Transfiguration with Christ in the center, arms outstretched. This
was what I been looking for. I had “found religion” in New York City.
Of course, I stopped in the gift shop in the narthex on my way out.
The saleslady said she came into the city every day from New Jersey
just to be in the church she loves so much and is so proud of. When
I asked about the cafe next door, she told me that its revenue helps
to defray the maintenance expenses of the church. She wanted to tell
me all of the church’s history, including the fact that Leopold
Stokowski, who went on to a career as one of the world’s great
conductors, was brought from Europe by St. Bartholomew’s to direct
its choir, establishing the church’s reputation as a place for good
music. Their Summer Festival of Sacred Music features works by Bach,
Bernstein and Byrd as well as Faure, Vierne and Kodaly. I could be
perfectly happy spending my whole summer vacation in their sanctuary,
eating all my meals in their Cafe St. Bart. That being impossible,
of course, I bought a CD of the Byrd Mass the choir had sung just
for me, the best souvenir of a trip I ever bought.
Gretchen Fletcher’s last story for Travel was on Newburyport, Mass.
She lives in Fort Lauderdale.