My grandfather was one of the founders of the church back in 1916. In fact, the first services for St. Nicholas were held in a dining room of a hotel my grandfather owned. He was in the travel business, and they would use that dining room every Sunday for services. In 1922, we acquired an old home on Cedar Street that became our church. It was built in the 1830s -- very small, very intimate. I grew up in Brooklyn, but every Holy Week I would spend the whole week at St. Nicholas. My grandfather would take us to the city, and we would have the services, and our services are quite long. Every night we'd be there three, four hours for the services, for Easter. My earliest memories are St. Nicholas Church. To a lot of people's standards, it would be a poor church; it didn't have a lot. But it was really like home. It was a wonderful place. It was a strong community that moved out of the area in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s but that still would go there for holidays. It was very special.My grandfather and his brothers came to the New York City area around 1904 from the Midwest, and downtown was the center of the shipping community. That's also where the ships would come in, bringing the new immigrants. We had two hotels, one on Morris Street and the one on Cedar Street. Immigrants would get off the boat and they would be met by my grandfather's brothers, who would bring them over to the hotel, and they would stay there till they got their trains to go out to, let's say, Ogden, Utah, to work on the railroads or whatever. A very strong Greek community built up there. On that street downtown we had Greek businesses, restaurants, markets. It was a thriving Orthodox community. There were also Syrians living in the area, and it was very nice.
Battery Tunnel was built, and that's when the Syrian community moved out of the area and came to Brooklyn -- Atlantic Avenue. It was changing, it was -- I hate to say it, I don't want to say it was dying out, [but] there was a period of time when we had very few members going to St. Nicholas. There would be Sundays when there would maybe be 10 or 15 people. It was kind of small. But then in 1971 or '72 our current priest and his family came to our church, and they were building up the community. People who hadn't any connection with St. Nicholas were starting to come to the church because it was a really charming little place. It was very beautiful. With the building of the Battery Park City area, people were moving in who were either Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox and were looking for a church in the neighborhood. I moved to the area to be near St. Nicholas. I moved to Battery Park City, and I lived about four blocks away. These young kids who worked on Wall Street were coming to our church.
Even though we didn't have so many people on Sundays for a period of time, Wednesdays were amazing, because we would open our church every Wednesday from 11 o'clock to 3 o'clock [for people] who were not necessarily Greek Orthodox but who just wanted a place of solitude and maybe to contemplate for a little bit. The church was actually quite crowded every Wednesday. I would take time off of work and volunteer my time and open up the church one Wednesday a month. We took turns; there would be someone there every Wednesday, and we made a lot of friends. People would come then also on Sunday. They'd get to know the church and feel comfortable with us.
When you closed the door to the church, and you came in, you had liturgical music playing on a tape, the candles were burning, and people were just sitting in this low-lit room, contemplating. After an hour, when their lunch was over, they'd leave, and they had a new zest in them. It was really a very special place. I know I go to church on Sunday no matter what's been going on all week. I always feel better when I leave. I think people were getting that on Wednesday. They were getting their religious high on Wednesday. It was an oasis. With the hubbub outside, once you came into the church, that small, frail building, once you closed the doors, you didn't hear anything outside. We got so much out of it.
I was a member of the church board for a few years before 9/11. It was a very simple operation. We had the church, we had weddings, christenings, but during the week it was rather quiet. We just had a service on Sunday, and we were open on Wednesday. The first Wednesday of the month Father John would come to the church and do a service and that always had a big crowd. Father John is very personable, charismatic man; he's like everybody's dad or older brother. We always had a good group come in. I would take off one Wednesday a month to be there. I would take a vacation day to come.
We had 70 families on the books as paid members. Some of them lived in Connecticut, some lived in New Jersey, and they'd come on holidays. But on a regular basis, we had a number of people coming Sundays; it was a tiny church, but it was full on Sundays because people were moving to the area. Even if they weren't paid members of the church, they'd come, light a candle, and sit for a while on Sunday, and it was growing; it was growing very well. And it had a special feel to it. ... It's a very warm place, St. Nicholas.
Thank God no one died on that day in our church. We had some people working in the church. Thank God they had the sense to run. I probably would have stayed in the building. It was a big loss to us. The wife of our former priest said to me, "John, we're going to rebuild that church and it's going to be better than before." I was devastated, but here was this lady, 90 years old, who had seen the world and said, "We're going to go on and we're going to be rebuild and it's going to be fine." That's given me a lot of strength.
That day was a nightmare. I was working in downtown Brooklyn; I was a federal agent. To be honest with you, I thought the whole country was being attacked. It was very spotty. I had to walk four hours from my office to my relatives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in that smoke and ash with my co-workers, because I couldn't go home. My apartment was right at the World Trade Center area, and we had no phone service. But I thought everything would be okay at St. Nicholas. I knew the towers came down, but I just couldn't imagine that the church would be destroyed. The debris from the South Tower literally pancaked our church. It was an unbelievable amount of debris. Very few things were ever found.
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