The New York Liberty Bell will toll again.
The iconic chime, which tolled for the birth of the nation in 1776 as well as the victims of 9/11, survived the Dec. 5 inferno that left the historic Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village in ruins.
Here are the exclusive first photos of the New York Liberty Bell as it appears following the blaze. The pictures were taken Saturday by a city engineer inspecting the site and provided to The Post. The bell, which is on the third floor of the church tower, has an inscription which says it was cast in Holland in 1729.
“Very happy to confirm that the bell was largely undamaged in the fire,” City Buildings Department spokesman Andrew Rudansky said Saturday afternoon.
Chief Engineer Tim Lynch told The Post the fire damage “went into the tower. It got the stairs, but it didn’t get through the stairs into the belfry. The fire was in low, but it definitely was in the tower. There are embers all the way up there. I couldn’t see the fire damage beyond the second floor, just embers up there.”
Faulty electrical wiring sparked the blaze, fire officials said Friday.
“The bell is OK. It’s in the tower,” a relieved Rev. Jacqui Lewis told The Post just 24 hours earlier.
City engineers on Saturday used a “manlift” to “take a closer look” at the upper steeple and the beloved bell, a Buildings Department spokesman said.
Lewis, the first African American and woman to serve as senior minister in the Collegiate Church — which was founded in NYC in 1628— toured what was left of the once-welcoming house of worship on Thursday.
She called the sight of the scorched sanctuary “heartbreaking.”
“To see that burned shell, cracked glass, ashes, twisted metal. It’s like seeing someone you love after they died.”
City Buildings Department spokesman Rudansky said engineers “will continue to monitor and assess the stability of the remaining structure of the church, including the facade and the steeple, while cleanup operations are still underway.”
Rudansky said city engineers have been on the scene every day since the morning of the fire, “overseeing the demolition operations” at the 48 East 7th street site.
On Monday, the agency ordered the partial demolition of unstable elements of the church building, “including the rear and the nave of the church which was completely destroyed in the fire. This is not a full demolition order, and does not include the façade or the steeple,” Rudansky said.
The Reformed Protestant church’s tower houses the 3-foot tall, 800-pound Liberty Bell, which was hauled by hand and pulley to the top of the steeple. The bell has peeled for the inauguration and death of every U.S. president, as well as for the July passing of Civil Rights titan Rep. John Lewis. Cast in Amsterdam in 1729, the bell is about a quarter-century older than Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell, according to a 1959 New York Times article.
The Middle Collegiate Church burned after a massive pre-dawn blaze spread from a five-story vacant building adjacent to the church. Flames shot from the roof and the church’s regal front window glowed from the conflagration inside.
Middle Collegiate Church is the oldest congregation of the Collegiate Churches of New York, according to its website. Organized in 1628, and established by royal charter from King William III of England in 1696, the Collegiate Churches of New York claims to be the oldest continuously active church, and corporation, in North America.
“In 1729 the first Middle Collegiate Church was built on Nassau Street between Cedar and Liberty. As the population moved north in Manhattan, Middle Church moved to meet the need. The second sanctuary was erected at Lafayette Place and 4th Street in 1839,” the website explains. The now-destroyed sanctuary at Seventh Street and Second Avenue was built in 1892 and received a major renovation in the late 1990s.
Before the destruction, the sanctuary housed a collection of more than a dozen artificially-lit Tiffany windows and the social hall featured a large Tiffany skylight dome.
The 392-year-old church has a casual dress code instead of Sunday best, texting is not taboo and all are welcome.
“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” actor Tituss Burgess has been coming for 13 years. The 41-year-old actor — known for his high tenor voice — sings in one of the church’s three choirs when he’s not in front of the cameras or on Broadway.
“Our nation is rallying around our church. We are just not the East Village church. We are not just a New York church. It’s clear we are a national church and we are grateful for the love,” Lewis said. The multiracial congregation grew from 400 people to 1,400 under her stewardship.
Amid the pandemic and prior to the fire, the church had live-streamed services from inside the century-old Gothic Revival structure. Services with a message of hope resumed online Sunday.
“A week later, I’m still in shock. Truly I can’t bear it,” congregant Janine Borchgrevink texted The Post on Friday. Borchgrevink who “discovered the church” in 1981 and remains a member despite moving to California, said she “always knew” the NY Liberty Bell “was special” and felt it “was a connection to others, to the neighborhood, a constant…Oh how I’d love to be hearing them now.”
A 1994 Newsday story noted how the bell at that time was “green from oxidation, but the inscribed date, name of maker, benefactor and dedication, all in Dutch, can still be read. The encircling band of scrollwork, accompanied by dancing cupids, is still discernible in sumptuous detail.”
The church to date has received $200,000 in donations since the blaze, said Lewis, adding there are “no plans as of yet” regarding what’s next for the bell.
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December 13, 2020 at 12:13AM
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Did NYC's Liberty Bell survive the Middle Collegiate Church fire? - New York Post
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