Following the tragic death of 61-year-old Richard Schwartz July 26, after lightning struck Clinton Street’s Christ Church steeple and dislodged stones, the Cobble Hill Association has posted an update from Father Ron Lau. The entire surrounding block is currently closed to traffic.

He says: “The tower is being partially dismantled and the stones stored until the engineer deems it safe to open the street and our buildings. All four pinnacles are down now. This was the slow part, as they are round and the basket is rectangular. Now that that is done, they have commenced dismantling the walls and buttresses, probably down to just below the bell chamber louvers, or perhaps the clock faces, [which] depends on what they find as they work. The tower is massive (walls are approximately 8 feet thick at buttress base and 4 feet at the bell louvers and 3 feet up top).”

The long range plan from the engineer’s point of view, Lau says, is that once the tower is stable and safe, the Parish House offices and preschool will be reopened, followed by repairs to the roof and northeast corner walls, removal of rubble from inside the church, repairing the organ (now full of grit), and then addressing tower restoration. He adds, “I have been asked to refer all questions in the future to The Rev. Canon Shawn P. Duncan, Canon for Media and Mission, who serves as Chief Information Officer for the Diocese of Long Island”: sduncan@dioceseli.org

Source: Cobble Hill Blog
http://cobblehillblog.com/archives/7740