“It could not be what it was,” mentioned the Rev. Alexander Karloutsos, a former archdiocese official who was intimately concerned within the rebuilding. “It was transfigured at that moment of death,” he continued. “We have a responsibility to bear witness to the lives lost.”
Because of the formidable scope of the undertaking, the way forward for the church was largely out of parishioners’ fingers, mentioned Ms. Katopodis, an proprietor of Pi Bakerie, which serves up spanakopita and different Greek specialties only a few blocks away from St. Nicholas. “We had to step aside for a while,” she mentioned.
Father Ramos relocated to Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral, in Downtown Brooklyn, adopted by a number of different congregants, together with Ms. Katopodis.
After years of political wrangling, stop-and-go negotiations and litigation, a land-swap settlement was finalized. The Port Authority would fold the church’s lot into surrounding property it managed and construct a safe facility for autos getting into the realm. In alternate, the church would get a spot atop the power and barely east of its authentic location, on the nook of Greenwich and Liberty Streets.
The church, it turned out, wouldn’t solely acquire a extra distinguished tackle, it will additionally get a whole new look.
Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish-born architect who designed the trendy, birdlike practice station and shopping center close by generally known as the Oculus, sketched out a plan for a 12,000-square-foot domed construction with 4 nook towers, drawing inspiration from Byzantine artwork and structure. When illuminated from inside at night time, the dome would shine “like a candle,” he mentioned.
But because the years glided by and workplace towers went up on the commerce middle web site, the 9/11 Memorial opened and vacationers flocked to the realm to pay their respects, the church undertaking languished.