9/13

angel of 9/11

West Park and 9/11

For those who have followed the West Park story, this is synopsis of how the small upper West Side Manhattan church responded. (To read more stories, simply enter “9/11” in the search portal..)

That afternoon, the elders gather at the church and call every church member to make sure they’re safe and okay

That night, we open our doors to the community for prayers and reflection. The sanctuary is full. A reporter visiting from France publishes an article about what she experienced at West Park.

The first Sunday after, our intern Chris Shelton creates a giant banner with the words of the original West Park motto from Zechariah 4:6 :

Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts and hangs it from the balcony.  

The service begins  with these words in a musical piece created by Bob Brashear with William Schimmel and the singers.  Each musician has been asked to share what is most important and special to them. Andre Solomon-Glover has brought a Muslim friend to accompany him and demonstrate our solidarity.

After church, we make some 1500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the first responders with Andre showing us how to make the perfect pbj.

About two weeks later, a work group from West Park goes to Ground Zero to work the night shift feeding workers on the steps of St.Paul Chapel. Among our group is a volunteer from Tennesee who had been with a church work group at West Park during the summer. A visiting college woman from Oberlin writes a reflection, “I was there.”  The national magazine Presbyterians Today published a center spread story on West Park. 

A West Park group spends the night at Boule slicing onions for a gourmet meal to be delivered to workers,

In the following weeks, Associate Pastor Reginaldo Braga served as a volunteer chaplain at the armory where people came to seek word of their loved ones. Pastor Brashear served at Union Square and led return groups to Ground Zero.

A  large banner signed by church members arrived from Oklahoma and was hung in our 86th street entrance hall.

Our sanctuary hosted a concert  organized by Dana Hanchard to raise relief money and also declare “Not in our name,” part of a rising concern that our grief would serve a grounds for warfare.

West Park also hosted a performance as part of the International Lysistrata Project seeking to prevent the coming war in Iraq.  Our production was performed by formerly homeless and incarcerated persons organized by Marc Greenberg and the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing as a way of showing who the domestic victims of the war would be. 

When war is declared, Pastor  Brashear is arrested as part of an interfaith protest against the war.  

At our annual Benefit concert for people who are homeless, Comfort Ye, organized by Metropolitan and City Opera soprano and West Park elder Lauren Flanigan, Met bass Le Roy Lehr closed the concert with a poignant Try to remember a time in September leading into a whole cast “O Holy Night.” 

For the next year, every sermon continued the exegesis of the people who made up the living body of the Risen Christ as we experienced living in 9/11 world.

New York City Presbytery selected West Park to be one of its five “hub churches” to meet the needs of this who “fell between the cracks.” This program directed by Angela Willey with the assistance of social workers would operate for the next 18 months.,

New York City Presbytery would recognize the work of West Park in our response by naming us an angel of 9/11. 

In the 18 months following 9-11, West Park added 35 new members and enrolled 25 new Sunday school members….