The 12th day of Christmas: a woman in orange is waiting for me

1/5

Charles tells me a woman in orange is waiting for me.  I anticipate and am right. I know her from work around the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing. And SPSA. And Westside Campaign Against Hunger. She’s from a Hindu sect that sponsors a women’s homeless shelter nearby. She knows we housed people during Occupy and is hoping we can take some of her women one night a week. Makes me a little nervous, but….I ask her to write me up a proposal to share with my Session. We’ll consider it. As long as they’ve got someone for sleepover, well, it could work…

ETHEL is hard at work in the Sanctuary. Ralph is auditioning a new violin player.

Pat O want to show me the construction work being done in the chapel. The old closet, actually once the office of the Gray Panthers and later West Side Peace Action, has been removed as well as the small attic. Many things have   been revealed. The workers have  not recognized the large, long wooden boxes as actually bass organ pipes. I show Pat parts of the pipe that can be tuned to adjust the sound. Years ago, when I saw the pipes, I thought they had never been installed, like so many other incomplete projects at West-Park. But when Austin Organ reps came to examine our organ, they found that eccentric organist Allan Van Zoeren had actually removed the pipes to change the sound, making it his creation in 1954. Van Zoeren would ultimately move to Portland, Oregon and found his own internationally famous organ company, yet one more West-Park/Portland connection.

And then, for the first time in six years I saw the wooden cross candle holders from the sanctuary, the candle holders that were used to dramatically and romantically light the sanctuary during the Christmas season. Just in time for Twelfth Night and Epiphany. Next year, for sure….

Late in the day, it’ getting colder, Dion drops by to say Hi. His time at his old place has finally ended. And he will do anything to help. Dion is one of those truly good people. Way will come, as the Quakers say.

Of organs and organizing

3/25

Tara from Friday’s penthouse wedding is waiting for me. Somehow I had left with the wedding license still in my suit coat pocket. They need it for their French Polynesian honeymoon so it’s a fast cab ride home and back to get the license.

I stop by Barney Greengrass and wish Gary a hag sameach as he gets ready to close up shop for his annual Passover hiatus. No visit to their Beverly Hills outpost (...they’re  fancy schmancy, we’re just schmancy...) this year,  just Long Island and then south to Florida. I’ll miss my daily coffee and conversation while he’s gone. 

Back out on the street, I see Marty. Freilich Pesach, I say. 

Are you fluent in Hebrew,reverend? (Actually that was Yiddish.)

No, I studied it. In school. Remember I told you?

My father liked to study. Every Friday night, he’d take out 3 or 4 books, lay them on the table and study. He liked to steal books to study. Pick them up in the synagogue, put them inside his black coat, take them home, study...Saturday, when sabbath was over he’d watch TV. The wrestling, the Jackie Gleason Show. I was a lifeguard. The school had a 15 yard pool which was ridiculous. But I could crank open the roof and let the sun in. My father liked to study. 

For a moment, I see him, a strapping teenage lifeguard. You have a good Pesach, Marty. He touches his finger to his cap brim, nods. 

Our Austin hybrid organ

In the sanctuary, the two partners of the Perragallo Organ Company are meeting with Stephen and Danielle. Longtime family business.  Reviewing their findings. Our Austin organ replacement value is about a million dollars. Alan Van Zoeren had changed it from romantic with a heavy bass to baroque with stronger treble. The mystery pipes in the basement are finally explained to me. They are not pipes that were never installed, they are pipes that were removed (and stored badly.) It’s one like I knew back in Tulsa that you could walk around inside of. That used to amaze me, that you could walk around inside an instrument. Feel it’s music enveloping you, all around you.  

There’s water damage in the downstairs engine room. Worn out leather bellows. Bent and broken pipes. But it can be made to play again. And even restored some day. With a movable console. Full midi capacity. I can see it. Jamie has joined us for the discussion.  We learn that the facade pipes are only for decoration. 

I recall how the last person to play that organ in 2009 was Leila’s father, Samir. Egyptian trained in Paris. A genteel and gentle man who loved that organ. Even after the church closed, he had his own key and would come in and rehearse. I used to worry about an octogenarian alone  in a closed church. But there was no denying him. I can hear his notes, his toccatas and fugues still echoing. He finished his career as a dance accompanist at Adelphi. Where Cara finished her dance degree. Circles.

Alexander is listening in as he opens the pulpit, pulling out long lost treasures like rabbits out of hats as part of his volunteer clean up duty. He dreams of playing that organ some day. Cara too has begun her work. 

Stephen and Jamie and I head to Popover’s for soup. But all too quickly, Danielle calls. The Interfaith Assembly on Housing and Homelessness Executive Committee has arrived  and I have to run. 

The Assembly walks the same financial tight rope as West-Park. Has managed to survive over 25 years. One of the original board members  has come back. With a proposal to renew the Assembly’s original vision. An organization of organizations, those organizations being congregations. It’s classic CO style. One on ones relationships, Assembly liaisons truly connected to their congregations bringing their concerns to a shared table. Joining with homeless people recruited from the streets. I know from my recent experience with PHEWA, this is where the energy needs to go. 

We also have a young intern who has come to us from Portland, Oregon. (PDX, yet again...) He’s presents a proposal to develop and expand our financial base. What the previous conversation reminds us of is the classic community organizing fund raising rule, grants are important, but what sustains long term is serious money locally raised, from the base.   

We commit ourselves to a four month go with these proposals, reviewable after two. We wish each other the best for the week of Passover and Easter. 

Baroque, Barqu, Barque, Borracho, Boxer

3/12

Hope comes in to work on our first memo of understanding for those working in our building, needing to clarify roles, responsibilities, etc.  Signs announcing a public hearing regarding our building causing consternation. Need to get to the bottom of this.

Stephen digging deeper into the organ issue. Makes contact with the Austin Organ Company. Learning the history of our unique instrument and its unique (eccentric?) creator Allan Van Zoeren who may have been the first link in West-Park’s curious connection with Portland, Oregon. At some point, he got taken by the idea of going Baroque and rigged it up accordingly. So now Austin calls it a hybrid. We wind up trying to figure out how to turn the old instrument on. We find the bellows and manage to get it on, but the keyboard remains elusive. RL’s attention is drawn to the project and he provides a jack of all trades supervisor’s eye. The organ was last played by Leila’s father, Samir, deep into the days after the church was closed. He loved that instrument, made it his own.  

RL and Poet Tim invite me up to the studio. RL’s been working on archival material for the Dream project. telling the story of his Barqu Barque. Barqu, of course, being the demon responsible for the philospopher’s stone, maintainer of ancient wisdom. RL figured that was a good icon for his old books store. His dream was of a schooner which turned into a full sail pushcart with wagon wheels and a cargo of books. It’s a long story. Spoiler alert: ends with a breakdown, a flask, a limo and Staten Island boat burial. Better wait for the movie.

The Mexican from yesterday has returned. Near to pass out drunk. I’m very concerned. Too drunk to make sense. Mi hermano, no se puede estar aqui en este condicion. He just stares back. Martin comes out, says pretty much the same thing, except in proper  castellano. We decide to call 911. Martin tells him he’s going off to get coffee for him. To not go anywhere. Esparase. I have to go inside a minute When I come back, el borracho is gone. Martin returns with the coffee. Damn, Need to call off the EMT's. I’ll take the coffee.

Basta. Enough. Time to go home. Rachelle has found me. Tells me  she’s missed me. Asks if I’m going to the St. Patrick’s day parade. Church morning I say. She smiles. Boxer Mike approaches with his Dalmatians. Wearing a classic felt and leather boxing club jacket with embroidered gloves and sweats, wearing his old school Golden Gloves medal. I been tryin to get a room from you for two years, he says. Keep tellin’ you, wrote me a proposal, I respond. All I need is a place to hang my bags, he says, for the kids. He hangs with me until the Dalmatians decide to go elsewhere. Just some bags, he calls over his shoulder as he disappears down a cross street, just some bags....

We will do whatever it takes

8/18

Three cardboard beds to remove this morning. At least the guys are keeping things relatively clean in the morning. Steps are getting scrappier though and  I’m not really up to doing anything about it. 

Clifford the plumber comes to check out the rusted through pipes that let the water pour through into the church. And to do an estimate on repairing a janitor’s sink for Woodshed. And unclogging the drains in the restrooms. We need to get the Landmarks Conservancy in on the big pipes, he’d reported them during his earlier work. 

John H comes in with a locksmith to open our window signs for which we no longer have keys. Of course he wants to get up info about his own Dark Lady  production, but its also time to get all the outdated signs down. By the time he’s done, there are new signs, a sign with information for potential renters and the most recent newspaper articles from the Times and the Spirit on Woodshed and West-Park. We’ve needed this. 

A young woman, Savan,  comes in and asks about the Dark Lady players. She’s on her way to work at Good Enough to Eat where she’s a server and saw the signs. I tell her all about the DLP and also the Woodshed production. And then I give her a mini-tour of a few rooms and ask Jillian for a Woodshed postcard. Her eyes widen as she looks around. I ask her about her name. Persian, from Iran.

Chad comes in. A professional organist. Wants to know if we still function as a church. I tell him our story. He currently plays for a church in Harlem. Wants to play the organ. Tell him it hasn’t been played since Samir died a couple of July’s ago. Not sure what it would  take to get it going again. It has its own story. Austin hybrid. A line of eccentric organists all left their own marks. Big bass pipes found under the sanctuary, never installed. Copper pipes stolen and sold to buy crack during the 80’s. It’s role in a series of music wars during my day. The wheezing note that was stuck. (Keep that, i can use that, said Bill Schimmel, accordionist/keyboardist extraordinaire  during his time here.) I take down his name. Would love to see it come alive again. 

The Woodshed folks are timing Trelkowsky’s costume change, harness rigging and run to his leaping place on the balcony with a stopwatch. Still trying to get the final scene down to the split second. Thirty-nine seconds, I hear someone say. Followed by applause. 

Take a break. Walking down 86th to Starbucks, I run into Sarah Sayeed from The Interfaith Center.  She becomes the third person to recommend Sarnos book on healing back pain. I had no idea it was so common. Just as I had no idea how many live with chornic pain. How hard it is to see through the fog and focus. 

RL brings by a load of plaster for the bathrooms. We’ve got to work out a plan when Danielle returns. And talk about a memorial concert for the P & G’s crowd. Tim has come along to help him. 

Finally Katherine. She’s been working all day on a letter to our city council member, Gale Brewer. The church and the Center Board are quite concerned about the looming crisis with the boiler. We need action, now. And just in case, we start going through our catalogues prepared in advance of the devloment that never  happened. Looking for what we could sell to buy the boiler. The Tiffany chairs? Settee? Antique glass? Silver? We have to be ready to do that. And everything is now stowed under the church. We will do whatever it takes. 

The cast and crew of the Tenant is assembled in the sanctuary. Final director’s notes and instructions before tonight’s performance. 

I head to the yard to sit quietly before heading home. it’s been a long day.