St. Paul’s Remembers the Way It Was By Jean Bergantini Grillo On Sept. 11, 2001, St. Paul’s Chapel, miraculously untouched, became a sanctuary for rescue and recovery workers to leave behind their grief, toil and exhaustion at Ground Zero (virtually across the street) and enter the 235-year-old Colonial church for a hot meal, a bed, a back rub, a pair of new boots, a quiet prayer. Massage therapists, podiatrists, chiropractors, counselors were at the ready 24/7, aided by hundreds of volunteers. I was one of the latter, spending long hours serving food and some small solace. Last month, on the anniversary of the disaster, Trinity Church opened St. Paul’s to the public, offering a glimpse at what went on inside. It’s a living, breathing view, with real items, real documentation, raw feelings. Your tour is arranged exactly as a GZ worker would approach us: First the memorial table (soon filled with photos and mass cards of the lost), then the supply bins, the music area, the food corner, the sleep cots, the podiatrist pew (where blisters were healed on the spot George Washington once knelt in prayer). Crowning all of this are huge banners and signs full of tenderness and love hanging from the rafters. When a Ground Zero worker entered St. Paul’s, there were soft lights, candles, quiet music, boxes and boxes of fresh supplies (socks, lip balm, toothpaste) and better yet—high quality meals. I live six blocks from Ground Zero. I saw buildings fall and flames devour lives. Helping serve 3,000 meals a day 24/7, kept me sane, as well, as we all worked to keep overwhelming sorrow at bay. For those of us on the 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. shifts, St. Paul’s literally got us through the night. Serving food, working as a food captain, my goals were clear and immediate. Keep those plates full and moving, keep the soup urn hot and fresh, make sure those well-meaning but ever-changing visiting volunteers didn’t violate major sanitary laws. Between September and May, St. Paul’s was off limits to the outside world. In a strictly private, largely unheralded labor of love and charity, we shared meals and grief. Back rubs and tears. While the workers took great comfort in the huge banners and flowers and hundreds and hundreds of love letters from men, women and children across America, the exchange was often fragile. I remember offering some burly firefighter one of the many chocolate bars wrapped in a sweet childish message sent in by a Cub Scout troop. His voice faltering, he refused. “No thanks,” he said softly as he fingered the note. “I can’t handle that.” Yet others, I recall, insisted they only found true rest on St. Paul’s wooden pews. As one recovery worker pointedly put it recently, “St. Paul's was heaven. Ground Zero was hell.” Sister Grace (one of the unsung helpers) calls what we did “radical hospitality.” As a docent guiding visitors now, I hear her words roll on our videotape and I think: yes, yes. But it was also radical outreach, radical heartbreak. We were hurting. They were hurting. And for nine months we came together to offer mutual balm. We wore out two four-burner stoves in our tiny back kitchen, constantly warming those incredible soups in just two heavyweight metal pans. The stoves are gone, but one of those pans is now on display. What you can’t see are the hours and hours someone stood over it, keeping its contents hot but not sticky, a thankless but crucial task gladly borne by many. “Out of the Dust: A Year of Ministry at Ground Zero St. Paul’s Chapel,” Broadway and Fulton Streets, Mon. to Sat. 10 to 6; Sun. 10 to 4. Free.