The St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in late 1999, less than two years before it was crushed beneath the collapsed World Trade Center towers. More than nine years after the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was crushed in the World Trade Center's collapse, its congregants are still wondering when or even if it will ever be rebuilt. They may begin to get their answer next week, according to the Port Authority, the bi-state agency in control of the land that the church once occupied.
To rebuild the church, a deal must be struck between the church and the Port Authority for a new lot on or near the original one on Cedar Street and enough money for construction. That will first require the two sides to actually talk to each other something they haven t done in more than a year. But Christopher Ward, the Authority's Executive Director, told Community Board 1's World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee on Oct. 4 that talks could begin probably by the middle of next week.
We really want and we think there should be a Greek church rising at the World Trade Center, he said. We re prepared to make a full compensation to make sure their church rises on the site.
That came as news to John Couloucoundis, president of the church's Parish Council, who told the Trib on Oct. 6 that the Port Authority has contacted neither the council nor the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in over 19 months.
We don t know anything about it, Couloucoundis said. We re kind of scratching our heads, because we haven t seen any of that. I d love a chance to sit down with the Port Authority and try to hash things out.
The two sides came close in July 2008 to finalizing a deal. But after eight months of haggling over details, the Authority abruptly broke off negotiations, saying it had to start excavating the site in question for its underground Vehicle Security Center currently under construction beneath the land where the church once stood or risk falling further behind in rebuilding the Trade Center. There has been virtually no discussion between the two sides ever since.
Before its destruction, the tiny, four-story church building had spent more than 80 years nestled among the towers of finance and commerce in Lower Manhattan. Formerly a tavern, it was purchased by Greek immigrants for $26,000 and made into a church in 1916. They named it for Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors, bankers and bakers and, of course, the basis for the legend of Santa Claus.
Miraculously, Couloucoundis said, no one from the congregation was hurt in the Trade Center's collapse. Since Sept. 11, they have worshiped alongside the members of the Sts. Constantine and Helen Cathedral in Brooklyn Heights.
In July 2008, after years of negotiations, the Port Authority offered the church leadership a plot of land at the corner of Liberty and Greenwich Streets and up to $60 million to build a new church. In exchange, the agency would absorb the congregation's original plot at 155 Cedar Street, which it needed for an above-ground entry into the Vehicle Security Center. The church agreed in principal to the deal. But in the ensuing eight months, that agreement began to unravel.
Representatives of the church wanted even more public commitments, Port Authority spokesman Steven Sigmund said in a statement released earlier this year. In 2009, we made our final offer, which again included up to $60 million in public money and told St. Nicholas Orthodox Church that the World Trade Center could not be delayed over this issue. They rejected that offer.
Carl Glassman / Tribeca Trib
Father John Ramos, who still leads the congregation in weekly prayer from their temporary home in Brooklyn Heights, offers communion in the original church in December 1999. In order to make sure that that part of the [Vehicle Security Center] would be completed on time, we needed to move on with that project, Ward said on Oct. 4. So we had to break off those negotiations.
Couloucoundis, a member of the St. Nicholas congregation since 1994, said church leaders remember the sudden end of those negotiations very differently. He said the Authority's offer never explicitly guaranteed the church anything in exchange for its land at 155 Cedar Street, only that the agency may turn over the title to the alternative location.
We were very taken aback by that, Couloucoundis said. They didn t bind themselves to anything. They were trying to leave all of their avenues open in terms of how they might give us the money, and whether they would give us the property.
They just suddenly pulled out of the deal, he added. In the newspapers, they said we were too demanding, but we were really perplexed by that because we hadn t asked for anything they didn t offer to us.
Despite the apparent divide between the two sides, Couloucoundis said he believes the dispute could be resolved relatively quickly if the lines of communication were to reopen.
The reality is, if we were able to sit down with the Port Authority and figure out what it is we re trying to do here, we could probably be done in a day, Couloucoundis said. We have every intention of rebuilding. One way or the other, we re going to rebuild.
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