Trinity Church

Yesterday, I spent the whole day in the financial district of New York city.  I went with the Business students and the Wall Street club.  We left at 6:30 in the morning and got back around 10:30 last night.  It was amazing.  I will have a few days of posts from the city trip.  Here is number one, this is the Trinity Church in Lower Manhatten, it is a historic, active parish church int he Episcopal Diocese of NY.  The parish received its charter from King William 111 on May 6, 1697,  its land grant specified an annual rent of sixty bushels of wheat.  The first Trinity Church was constructed in 1698.  According to historical records, Captain William Kidd lent the runner and tackle from his ship for hoisting the stones.  Following his 1789 inauguration at Federal hall, George Washingtion attended Thanksgiving services.

The third and current Trinity Church was finished in 1846 and at the time of its completion its 281-foot spire and cross was the highest point in NY until being surpassed in 1890 by the  NY World Building.

On July 9, 1976 Queen Elizabeth 11, visited Trinity Church.  Vestrymen presented her with a symbolic "back rent" of 279 peppercorns.  Thereby, in 1697, King William111 gave Trinity Church a charter that called for the parish to pay an annual rent of one peppercorn to the crown.  during the September 11, 2001 attacks, as the 1st tower collapsed, people took refuge from the massive debris cloud in side the Church.  Falling wreckage from the collapsing tower knocked over a giant sycamore tree that had stood for nearly a century in the churchyard of St. Paul's Chapel, which is part of Trinity Church's parish and is located several blocks north of Trinity Church.  Sculptor Steve Tobin used its roots as the base for a bronze sculpture that stands next to the church today.  Trinity Churchyard, at Wall Street and Broadway, in which Alexander Hamilton, William Bradford, Franklin Wharton, Robert Fulton, Captain James Lawrence and Albert Gallatin are buried.

The picture that shows the doors going into the church, has a spot on the ground where it shows that Queen Elizabeth stood.