The coming of Jesus and his genealogy in sculptures at Trinity Church, New York City

Today, Christmas Day, we remember the times we dropped by the neo-Gothic Trinity Church of the Episcopalian diocese in New York City on our sundry walks around lower Manhattan.

The construction of Trinity was completed in 1846 and has received endowments from the rich and the famous like the Astors, and the powerful, the British royalty, through the years. 

There are three things that keep us tarry at Trinity: the bronze doors, the magnificent interior with its altar reredos and stained glass chancel window, and the burial ground at the churchyard.

The doors date back to 1893 and were gifts of William Waldorf Astor (now we know from where Waldorf Astoria was derived). They comprise panels that depict scenes from the Bible, history of the church, and of New York City.

While there is no sculpted nativity scene on any of the two leaves of the door at the main portal, the beginning and the end of the life of Jesus are presented. They come as a pair of panels in the middle of the left and right leaves. 

The Annunciation, a panel in the left leaf of the bronze main portal door.

On the left leaf is the Annunciation - angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she would conceive and be the mother of Jesus, and its counterpoint in the right leaf is an empty tomb - the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

The lowest pair depicts scenes from the Old Testament: expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, and the dream of Jacob, while the topmost pairs are interpretations of two visions from the Apocalypse.

The churchyard is an old burial ground. The tomb of Alexander Hamilton is in the southern yard.

What is striking in the northern yard is the Astor Cross, erected in 1914 in memory of Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, wife of William Astor. 

The Astor Cross at the northern churchyard.

The Cross carries sculpted figures to illustrate the genealogy of Jesus Christ according to St. Luke.

Around the four-sided obelisk are the following familiar characters: on the front side, going upwards - Adam and Eve, Shem and Judah; and on the other three sides, (a) Noah, Jacob and David; (b) Enoch, Isaac and Jesse; and (c) Seth, Abraham and Ruth, in the other sides,  And at the top of the structure is the Crucifix.

Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, at the doors and the churchyard cross at Trinity Church.

Adam and Eve.

Noah.

9/11/16: Remembering the Twin Towers

The first thing we had in mind when we got to New York recently was visit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum (9/11 Memorial in short), which opened on the anniversary day five years ago, 

The Memorial consists of twin pools, each about an acre in size, surrounded by bronze parapets where names of the people killed in the attacks of 11 September 2001 and 26 February 1993 are inscribed.  The north and south pools are set within the footprints of the original Twin Towers, which were known then as One and Two World Trade Center (WTC), also as North and South Towers, respectively. 

The Twin Towers and The Sphere at the 9/11 Museum. Photo by the author.

The first item we saw upon entry to the Museum was a blow-up picture of the Twin Towers with the large metallic sculpture called The Sphere in the foreground. And as we gazed at it, memories of more than 30 years ago came flooding in.

In 1982, for six months, we commuted from upper west Manhattan via the A Express subway train to Cortlandt to get to the World Trade Center. We would get into the the express elevator to the 78th floor sky lobby where we'd transfer to the local elevator to get to our cubicle at the 89th floor. We were in training in health physics with Ebasco Services, the largest tenant then of Two WTC (South Tower), occupying 16 floors between the 77th and 93rd. 

Up and down these elevators became quite routine for the lunch breaks either at the ground floor or around the neighborhood, and for the rush to the PATH or to the subway stations nearby for those heading home to New Jersey or elsewhere in New York, respectively,

We were originally facing the windows through which we could see the canyon of buildings on Broadway. One time as we were looking at the view of buildings from our desk, we suddenly realized that the tower was swaying: the vertical frames of the windows were moving vis-a-vis the skyscraper in the distance.  That made us turn the table around, and henceforth, had our back to the windows as we pored through our training materials.

We remembered taking a picture of the Twin Towers before we left New York for a job training in Tennessee. There had also been other pictures that we took at the lobby where the giant tapestry of Joan Miro hang, and those at the top, where, on clear, sunny days, we could see the city and New Jersey as far as our eyes could reach.

The Twin Towers, Oct 1982. Photo by the author.

                                    

Our picture of the towers reminded us that on the day before 9/11, we were at the Austin J. Tobin Plaza, near The Sphere, and we had fun looking at two young Frenchmen trying to get a souvenir photo of themselves with the top of the towers as background. One of them had to lie down with a camera so that he can get the other one framed by the towers as he stood on the parapet around The Sphere. 

This sculptural piece, badly damaged, is installed at the Battery Park, We learned that it would be relocated within the 9/11 Memorial. 

The damaged The Sphere at Battery Park. Photo by the author.

On 9/11, we were preparing to leave our friend's house in Queens for the WTC because we wanted to buy a discounted ticket for a Broadway musical. I think it was The Producer, at a TKTs booth there to avoid the long queues at Times Square. We were having coffee and watching TV. When the first plane struck one of the towers, we thought an accident had just happened. We were all glued to the breaking news still unaware that these were terrorist attacks. When the towers came down, the young man in the house was almost in panic, deeply worried of  his friends who were working within the WTC complex. 

Subway trains to lower Manhattan were suspended that day. Some lines were opened the next day and we could get to the Penn Station on 34th Street. The Amtrak trains were running, and we decided to leave for Boston.

The train was full, and everybody it seemed had a newspaper to read. The headlines were all about the terror that hit the United States on 9/11: the attacks on the towers and the Pentagon, and an aborted one due to the heroic act of the passengers.

Relics from the towers at the 9/11 Museum. Photo by the author.

We felt the terrorist scare when we were approaching Providence, Rhode Island. Suddenly, without explanation, the train stopped on the tracks. The wait for it to resume running became stressful and tense. The mobile phones of passengers calling their friends or families provided the logical answer to our predicament. Our train was stopped because authorities were searching another train on the other track for suspected terrorists.

The parapet around the 9/11 Memorial pools. Photo by the author.

9/11 wrought a drastic change in the airport departure protocols. We were among the first to taste stricter security procedures from Boston to San Francisco on our way home to Manila a week after. We remember that our check-in baggage were selected for inspection in Boston, and we had a good laugh with the inspector regarding the large quantity of chocolate candies we were bringing home. They were very alert for pointed objects.  In San Francisco, a good friend who was on the same flight with us had a micro screw driver in his carry-on. He argued that it's something not easy to find in Manila, hence, as an accommodation, it was wrapped, tagged, and checked in, in a way, with the flight crew.

9/11 reverberates in every airport around the world. One can not even get a bottle of water past security. 

Philippine dignitaries in the history of New York's ticker-tape parades

It's not a tourist attraction in New York City: the series of granite plaques inlaid into the sidewalks on both sides of the city's most famous Broadway Avenue. These bear names and dates inscribed in steel, which I later learned to be the honorees of the New York ticker-tape parades through the years from 1886 to the latest in July 2015.

Granite panel commemorating ticker-tape parade for Pres. Carlos P. Garcia.

Coming from the 9/11 National Memorial, this plaque caught my interest on my way to lunch: "June 23, 1958. Carlos P. Garcia, President of the Philippines" (all caps). Later, I found out what this and the others were all about; the plaque on the sidewalk of 1 Broadway says that "These granite panels commemorate the New York tradition of ticker-tape parades up Broadway from the Battery to City Hall. This celebrated route is called the Canyon of Heroes [all caps]."

The commemorative markers were embedded in 2004 in chronological order starting from the southernmost point of the Canyon (across the Bowling Green with the popular Charging Bull sculpture and the Museum of American Indians nearby) up to the Woolworth Building.

The first ticker-tape parade happened on 28 October 1886 when the Statue of Liberty was unveiled. At that time, stock brokers occupied many offices along Broadway. They had ticker-tape machines, and they relayed stock market prices using ticker-tapes. According to accounts, when the celebration parade passed by, they ripped ticker-tapes off and threw them out of the window onto the parade. The ticker-tape parade tradition thus began.

This panel explains the embedded ones on Broadway Ave. sidewalks.

The mayor of New York City  decides who to honor with a ticker tape parade. The list includes important events (landing on the moon, end of World War II, triumphs of hometown sports teams) and dignitaries (royalties, heads of states, athletes, etc.).

So far, there had been only three honorees from the Philippines;  Elpidio Quirino, President of the Philippines. 11 August 1949; Carlos P. Garcia, President of the Philippines. 23 June 1958; and Diosdado Macapagal, President of the Philippines. 08 October 1964.  These were during their state visits to the United States.

Commemorative panel of ticker-tape parade for Pres. Elpidio Quirino.

Commemorative panel of ticker-tape parade for Pres. Diosdado Macapagal.

As an aside, Admiral George Dewey and General Douglas MacArthur, two prominent names in the history of the Philippines as an American imperial territory, were also showered with ticker-tape in the Canyon of Heroes. Dewey's defeat of the Spanish armada in Manila Bay to MacArthur's destructive redemption of his 'I shall return' promise defined the timeline of the Americanization of the Filipino psyche.

New York welcomed him after Pres. Truman dismissed him as commander of the UN forces in Korea.

New York welcomed Dewey upon his return from Manila with a parade on 30 September 1899.   MacArthur's parade did not happen after World War II. Ticker-tape rained on him on 20 April 1951 following his dismissal 'on the grounds of insubordination' as commander of the U.N. forces in Korea by President Harry S. Truman.

The ticker-tape parades remind us of the "yellow confetti" that rained down from the business buildings in Makati after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983. These were shredded yellow pages of telephone directories thrown out of windows during the protest rallies on Ayala Avenue.

No one was honored in those "yellow confetti" rallies. They were symbols of indignation against strongman Ferdinand Marcos,

Rizal@150. Walking with JPR in New York of 1888.

We came to know of a Rizal marker in New York City over a late breakfast of salmon sandwiches and hot coffee in a Queens deli from Rey Lauron, ex-Madz, ex-UP carilloner, Pinoy music man in Paris for almost three decades and New York since the 1990s.  

This Knight of Rizal recalled being around when the marker was installed sometime in May 1995 in a building at the corner of 23rd St and Fifth Avenue occupied at that time by the International Toy Company.  

"They'll let you take pictures," he assured, "just ask permission."  Obviously, Lauron has not visited the place since then.  We found the building alright, but the toy company is gone and the marker nowhere in sight.  The present occupants say they haven't seen it at all.

This is the Fifth Avenue Building facing the Madison Square Park where the Filipinos and friends assemble annually for the Philippine Independence Day celebrations, and neighbor to the iconic Flatiron Building nearby.

When JPR was in New York, Brooklyn was not yet part of the city. The hub of social, political and entertainment activities was in downtown Manhattan, the areas surrounding Union Square on 14th St and Madison Square Park on 23rd St. 

The Madison Square Park was/is right across the hotel where JPR checked in around noontime on 13 May 1888 after his cross-country train ride that started from Oakland, California seven days earlier.       

"A heritage of New York," the marker says of the  building that started as a farmhouse in 1839, then a tavern until 1852 when it was rebuilt as a hippodrome.  In 1859, that was replaced by "the six-storied, white marble Fifth Avenue Hotel, with the first hotel passenger elevator in New York ... and became a center of the city's social and political life."  What we see now is the structure erected in 1909, designed by Maynicke and Franke in Italian renaissance eclectic style, but it is no longer a hotel.

JPR had only one entry in his travel diary describing his impressions from his train window as they rode into New York, New York -- 

"Sunday 13 May –

"We awoke near Albany.  It is a large city.  There are various vessels in the Hudson River, which runs along its side.  We cross it on a bridge.  The landscape is beautiful and it has not much to envy in the best in Europe.  We travel along the banks of the Hudson.  The banks of the Hudson are very beautiful although a little lonely in comparison with the Pasig.  There are steamers and boats, trees, and hills, mostly cultivated.  The Hudson is wide.  There are beautiful boats.  The masses of granite had been cut to give way to the railroad.  In some parts, it is very long.  There are beautiful houses amidst trees.  The day is mild.  Our grand transcontinental travel ended on Sunday, 13 May, at 11:10 o’clock in the morning.  We passed through various tunnels.  The Art Age, 75 W. 23^rd Street. 

-- and as they sailed away for London -- 

"We left New York on 16 May 1888.  There was a crowd at the dock: Those of the 1^st class are separate from those of the 2^nd class at the entrance.  At 9:00 a beautiful spectacle at the jetty!  White handkerchiefs waving among hat bands, red flowers and other colors. . . . ."   

We have no idea what he did during his brief stay in New York.

The entry "The Art Age, 75 W. 23rd Street" clues us on what he possibly first did in the city.  He walked to this place, which was/is just at the west end of the block bound by 23rd St, Fifth and Sixth Avenues.  The artist in him could have sniffed correctly that this company dealt with the art business.  It was a printing company that put out the monthly journal of the same name. 

JPR could have leafed through the April issue of The Art Age, and liked the articles written with accompanying illustrations, critiques of art works, and reproductions of paintings there.  Here's one feature in that issue as described by The Critic --

He knew the English language, which he had been studying since 1884, and with which he used to learn Japanese from O Sei San during his stay in her country before he left her for the United States.  JPR could have also read the weeklies The Critic and The Nation, and the daily The New York Times, among others, and who knows if he could have brought one of these to read on his way to England, and hone his English?

He could have brought a paper with him to read after a walk to Union Square or right across at Madison Square Park.  If he bought the The Nation (issue number 1193, 10 May 1888), he could have read about the civil service in Philadelphia and the Rumanian peasant revolt, among others, as shown by its table of contents below --

Being a botanist, he could have enjoyed strolling to the parks and reading there surrounded by green trees and flowers of various colors in profusion all around him.  He could have rode to Central Park, which in the first decade after its construction in 1863 was not very accessible to the working class residing in lower Manhattan.  

From his readings, he could have learned about city politics and the Tammany politicians of the day, and could have gone to take a look at Tammany Hall.

Austin Craig (1914) wrote that JPR, during his first life in Europe, "frequently attended the theater, choosing specially the higher class dramas ... and for the rest devoted most of his money to the purchase of books."  The New York papers carried advertisements of book shops and books on sale, and JPR could have scanned something interesting that he could afford to buy.

JPR could have been as eager as most of first-time visitors in New York today to see a play or a musical. In the 1870s, the Union Square area near Broadway at 14th Street was the city's main theater district, and by the 1880s as the city grew northward, new theaters were built near Madison Square, the area surrounding the junction of Broadway and 23rd Street.  The Lyceum on Fourth Avenue and 24th St was the first electricity-lit theater with Thomas Alva Edison himself supervising the power installation in 1885.

A brief diversion ... JPR missed an event that could have merited an entry in his travel notes if he got to New York at least a day earlier.  On 12 May 1888, Thomas Alva Edison exhibited his improved phonograph at the Electrical Club in New York. 

Thus, the theaters were in JPR's walking distance.  We may assume that he did not get to see a play but he could have noted the posters displayed at the lobbies of the theaters.  As gleaned from the the review of the New York Times of 20 May 1888, these were  on stage at that time --

“The Still Alarm” was continuing at the Fourteenth-Street Theatre, “Natural Gas” play that was “likely to run well into the summer” at the Fifth-Avenue Theatre, “The Queen’s Mate”, with “magnificent costumes and handsome scenery, had been playing at the Broadway Theatre to large houses, and “likely to run most of the summer”, “The Wife” at the Lyceum was expected to reach its two hundred and fiftieth night by its last performance in June, “The Lady or the Tiger”, an operetta likely on the boards for many weeks being  a “great financial success at Wallack’s Theatre, the comic opera “Nadjy” at the Casino, which has been filled to capacity despite severe criticism, and “Herr Brockmann’s monkeys, dogs, and ponies ... at the Star ... central point of attraction for children of ripe and tender years.”

As a sportsman, JPR could not have ignored the first Madison Square Garden (the present one at the Pennsylvania Station is the fifth) that opened in 1879, which was basically a sports arena.  We do not know what event was being held during JPR's visit, but the usual fare before it closed in 1890 were the PT Barnum circus, boxing exhibitions (boxing perse was illegal), flower and horse shows, conventions, indoor track and field events (first held in 1888).    

It baffles that JPR did not write anything about his stay in New York.  But in his diary concerning an arrogant American in a train ride from Paris to Dieppe in 1889, he wrote that "beginning to be annoyed by the fury of the traveler and I was going to join the conversation to tell him what I have seen and endured in America, in New York itself, how many troubles and what torture the customs in the United States made us suffer, the demands of drivers, barbers, etc., people who, as in many other places, live on travelers…."

What did he suffer in New York?  Did he shut himself away from the New York crowd, the sights and sounds that's why he did not add more to the view he saw from the train and from the ship when he came and left? 

References:

• Craig, Austin. (1914). Lineage, life and labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine patriot. A Study of the Growth of Free Ideas in the Trans-Pacific American Territory. Yonkers-on-Hudson: World Book Company.
• "The Life and Writings of Dr Jose Rizal/Diaries of Rizal" (Dr Robert L Yoder, Webmaster). Retrieved from http://joserizal.info/Writings/Diary/portal_diary.htm
• Critic, The. (July-December 1888, Volume 10).  Google Books.
• Nation, The. (January-June 1888. Volume 46). Google Books.
• New York Times, The.  (20 May 1888).
• Madison Square Garden I.  Retrieved from http://hockey.ballparks.com/NHL/NewYorkRangers/1stoldindex.htm