August 28, 2009. Behind these blue gates once stood a rectory to St. Peter’s Church, the oldest Roman Catholic parish in NYC and NY State. Now there stands this giant luxury apartment building. During construction, this gate was erected, and I watched from my office window as a construction worker carefully constructed and affixed the cross at the top. It remained unadorned, in stark contrast to the bright blue, and the faded prints of the Jesus and the mother Mary on either side of the locked entrance. It isn’t the Gates of Paradise, but someone thought about how to construct it, to give it some dignity relative to its meaning to the church building. To whom does the Danger sign speak? The weak of heart, the pious, the converted, or the believers?
