155 Cedar StreetStatus: CollapsedBuilding was constructed in the early nineteenth century. Greek Orthodox services began at the site in 1922. Building measured 22ft. wide, 56ft. long and 35ft. tall and it was bound on three sides by a parking lot. See St. Nicholas web site. |
ST. NICHOLAS CHURCH DESTROYED IN TWIN TOWERS ATTACK
New York - The terrorist attack against the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center that killed an estimated 5,000 people also destroyed the tiny St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church,located about 500 feet from ground zero.
New York Times, September 17, 2001
ST.
NICHOLAS: Hulking Neighbor Buries a Church
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
T he tiny bell cote of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at 155 Cedar Street had long been a delicate spiritual counterpoint to the massive World Trade Center towers behind it, one of them only 250 feet away.
There could have been no chance of its survival under the cascading wreckage Tuesday morning, though its pastor, the Rev. John Romas, tried to get there, according to an account on the Web site of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (www.goarch.org). One parishioner, Vassilios Torazanos, had been in the building, but escaped. The next day, Father Romas found the church buried under debris.
On the top floor of the building, which was built as a residence in the 1830's, the 85- year-old church kept relics of three saints St. Nicholas, St. Katherine and St. Sava. Father Romas, who has vowed to rebuild, still hopes that icons given by Czar Nicholas II of Russia can be found in the ruins.
The Wall Street Journal, September 17, 2001
Greek
Church Is Destroyed In Wake of Towers' Collapse
By RACHEL EMMA
SILVERMAN Staff Reporter
As rescuers pick through the World Trade Center rubble, the Rev. John Romas prays for the victims and their families, for the rescue and recovery workers, and for the remains of three individuals long dead: Saints Nicholas, Katherine and Savvas. St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, a tiny church that for decades stood alone in the middle of a parking lot across the street from the World Trade Center, was swept away in the wave of destruction as the complex collapsed. "I was down there on Wednesday," says Father Romas, known as Father John among his congregants. "My heart was broke in two. My church is gone -- and to have so many people in the World Trade Center that are dead."