Dr. James Cooper leads by example

As the rector and chief executive of New York City’s venerable Trinity Wall Street Church, Dr. James H. Cooper has overseen all aspects of the organization, from Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel to St. Margaret’s House, since his appointment in 2004.

Cooper, who received his Master of Divinity and his Doctor of Ministry from the Virginia Theological Seminary, has a long and distinguished record of service which spans more than 30 years in the clergy.

Among his past accomplishments, Cooper helped to grow his parish in Ponte Vedra, Fla., from a membership of 700 to more than 5,500, and he founded a nonprofit to provide quality health care to the region’s aging population.

In addition, he helped provide growth money for new churches in Nigeria, Kenya and Spain while also establishing missions and other facilities in Tanzania, Bolivia, the Bahamas and Cuba.
As the current head of Trinity, Cooper has helped to carry on the church’s original mission to serve the poor and isolated. The church was established in 1697, predating the city of New York.
Cooper has worked tirelessly alongside groups including the Downtown Alliance, an organization that provides funding to house the homeless in lower Manhattan. The church also gave a leadership grant to the Downtown Alliance’s Back to Business grant program, which is focused on helping small businesses in Zone A and lower Manhattan recover from the effects of Hurricane Sandy.

In addition, Cooper helped to steer funding of $250,000 to the Robin Hood Foundation, supporting the transition of veterans returning from active duty in Afghanistan.

Other initiatives Cooper has lent his time and talent to include a Relief Bureau to counsel the sick and jobless, food pantries and soup kitchens at Trinity chapels around the city, global grant programs that award millions both abroad and to vital programs in New York as well as the massive relief effort and shelter the church provided to the rescue workers at Ground Zero after 9/11.
When the John Heuss House, a day shelter for the homeless, was forced to close several years ago, Cooper and the church responded by opening Charlotte’s Place, a drop-in and welcome center for all visitors to the community. Further, a brown-bag lunch program was started on the front steps of Trinity, which distributes hundreds of bag lunches each week to anyone in need.

Also of importance is Cooper’s skill as a financial manager, carefully managing Trinity’s Grants Program, which has funded more than $72 million in programs in some 85 countries around the world since 1972.

But of all his responsibilities, perhaps the most important is the management of Trinity Real Estate, which handles the parish’s 6 million square feet of commercial real estate in Lower Manhattan. The income generated from the church’s real estate holdings, which Trinity has held for more than 300 years, enables the organization to sustain and develop programs and ministries around the world.
Honored recently at a Manhattan awards ceremony, sponsored by the Federation of Manhattan Welfare Agencies, Cooper made some thoughtful remarks.

“We have great expectations of each other,” Cooper said. He noted that while Trinity has “wonderful ministries, grand programs and buildings,” they will ultimately be known “not by those ministries and programs or buildings; we will be known by the love we have for one another.”

He added that “love endures all things, and it is only love that never ends. God will make the path straight again, will rise up the valleys and take boulders and mountains and throw them into the sea. … We are part of it simply because we love one another.”

Cooper is also known in the interfaith community for the work he began shortly after his arrival to push for increased communication and understanding of differences that arose among persons of differing faiths after 9/11.

He continues to reach out to those who speak out about both economic and social injustices.

Bishop George Packard in Duarte Square in 2011. Photo by Bklynraised, courtesy of Flickr Commons.

Back in December, eight OWS protesters were arrested for trespassing. Six months later their cases are finally going to trial, The Nation reports.

(by Alissa Fleck)

The December arrest took place at Duarte Square, where the Occupy movement saw its three-month anniversary. The OWS participants were standing in a vacant lot owned by Trinity Church at the time of their arrest. According to a reporter at The Guardian, the court room was overrun by occupiers yesterday at the eights’ arraignment.

Up for debate was whether “open to the public” signs around the church lot gave officers permission to clear the area, reports The Guardian. Trinity Church Rector James Cooper said the church was not seeking any sort of retribution, issuing a statement that “non-criminal dispositions without fines or incarceration be granted to all.” Cooper added that Trinity welcomes all OWS members.

Trinity made its facilities accessible to protesters at the beginning of the movement, but following the breakup of the Zuccotti Park encampment things got a little dicier, The Guardian says. Initially, protesters cut a hole in a fence to gain access to the vacant lot. Many were arrested. They made a second attempt a month later and again numerous occupiers faced arrest, including the December 17 eight. The eight, those who did not accept plea deals, decided to try their luck in court instead.

Episcopalian priest George Packard is one of the eight protesters going to trial. A YouTube video with 3,400 views shows him leading a group of protesters over the lot’s fence on a ladder. According to The Guardian, he spoke outside the courtroom about the consequences for his faith:

“I’m concerned that the church I love has changed around me,” he said.

CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY 7 State St. (at Battery Park), 212- 269-6865.
Christmas Day service Sunday, Dec. 25, 11 a.m.

JOHN STREET METHODIST CHURCH 44 John Street (betw. Dutch & Nassau Sts.), www.johnstreetchurch. org.
Christmas Eve Mass: carols, candles and Holy Communion Saturday, Dec. 24, 7 p.m.
Christmas Day Mass: celebration of God’s word and table Sunday, Dec. 25, 11 a.m.

LOWER MANHATTAN COMMUNITY CHURCH P.S./I.S. 89 Auditorium, 201 Warren St. (at West St.), www. lowermanhattanchurch.com.
Second annual Candlelight Christmas Eve Service Saturday, Dec. 24, 4 p.m.

ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL 74 Trinity Place (betw. Rector & Barclay Sts.), www.trinitywallstreet.org.
Christmas Eve midnight Mass Saturday, Dec. 24, 11 p.m.-12:30 a.m.
Christmas Day Holy Eucharist Sunday, Dec. 25, 8-8:45 a.m.

ST. PETER’S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 22 Barclay St. (betw. Church & Broadway Sts.), 212-233-8355.
St. Peter’s Church Mass Saturday, Dec. 24, 8 a.m. & 4 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 25, 8:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m. & noon.

ST. JOSEPH’S CHAPEL Gateway Plaza 500 (near World Financial Center), 212-466-0131.
St. Joseph’s Chapel Mass Sunday, Dec. 25, 10 a.m. & noon.

SYNAGOGUE FOR THE ARTS 49 White Street (betw. Church & Broadway Sts.), www.synagogueforthearts.org.
Chanukah services Tuesday, Dec. 20–Tuesday, Dec. 27 at 7 p.m.

Photo By Patrick Rehm

Dec. 17 marked the three-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. As a birthday present, I and others in the movement sought to re-occupy another public space, Duarte Square, at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Canal Street—just to clarify, Duarte Square is both a publicly owned triangular sidewalk and an enclosed lot to the west, which is privately owned by Trinity Church. We had planned a very festive day full of music, balloons, energy, dancing, songs and food to celebrate the seeds that were planted three months before, which have sprouted into a national movement.

At around 3 p.m., on the march around the square, people told me to stick close to the crowd in order to hide a ladder from sight of the police. The officers were mostly outside the fence, guarding its perimeter. But my group was able to reach a part of the fence without police in front of it. The ladder was erected for people to climb into Duarte Square, the new public space we would liberate. [Ed. note: Trinity Square’s portion of Duarte Square is currently closed to the public for the season.]

The first person to climb into the square was a retired bishop [Episcopal Bishop George E. Packard]. It was such an ironic image to see a bishop reclaiming a public space that Trinity Church had refused to allow Occupy Wall Street to use for an occupation.

As more people continued to climb into the park, other protestors successfully ripped the fence out from the bottom to create an entrance. Roughly 200 people, including myself, remained in the square until police began to charge inside, when many escaped through the newly made hole in the fence. I was on the periphery, watching as the 50 or so protestors who had bravely stayed inside were arrested for trespassing on “private property.”

In the middle of the excitement, I couldn’t help but notice the symbolic potential of this moment. It was the 99 percent succeeding at doing away with an unnecessary fence that symbolized the 1 percent. Our success lay in realizing our potential as the majority in this struggle, those who suffer from economic, social and cultural oppression.

We marched uptown to the house of Trinity Church’s owner to protest the hostility toward our genuine intentions to reclaim a public space. We marched with enthusiasm and energy by taking to the streets and stopping traffic. Such militancy clearly arose from ordinary people—from city council members to teachers to radicals to the unemployed—engaging in direct action. You could hear chants like “A-Anti-Anti-Capitalista” and “Bloomberg beware, Zuccotti Park is everywhere” from blocks away.

We proved to the world that we are willing to spend the night in jail, climb fences, take the streets and escalate to build momentum and solidarity for a newly born movement that seeks to achieve justice for the 99 percent.

Disclaimer: Lucas Vazquez is not an official spokesperson for Occupy Wall St.

The Fight Over Duarte Square

By Marissa Maier

While Trinity Wall Street, an Episcopalian church located in Lower Manhattan, provided early support like blankets and places to rest for Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters, the faith organization now finds itself at odds with members of the movement.

Since OWS was evicted from its previous home in Zuccotti Park in mid-November, the protesters are now calling to set up an encampment on a triangular piece of property owned by the Episcopalian Diocese in Soho. They attempted to occupy the space on the three-month anniversary of OWS this Saturday, Dec. 17. The property in question, Duarte Square, is a small, empty plot bordered by 6th Avenue, Sullivan, Grand and Canal streets.

“Vast resources sit unused while people are in need—in need of homes, schools, jobs and public places to gather and empower communities,” members of the movement noted in a press release before Saturday’s “Re-Occupy” event. “This vacant lot [Trinity Wall Street’s portion of Duarte Square] has sat empty for the past 3 years and is not slated for development for at least another year, similar to the hundreds of bank-owned, foreclosed homes in East New York.”

In a statement, the rector of Trinity Church, the Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, noted that the church still holds the ideological values of the movement dear and pointed out that Duarte Square isn’t equipped with the facilities to accommodate an encampment, especially in the winter months.

“OWS protestors call out for social and economic justice; Trinity has been supporting these goals for more than 300 years. The protestors say they want to improve housing and economic development; Trinity is actively engaged in such efforts in the poorest neighborhoods in New York City and, indeed, around the world,” Cooper wrote.

“We do not, however, believe that erecting a tent city at Duarte Square enhances their mission or ours,” he continued. “In good conscience and faith, we strongly believe to do so would be wrong, unsafe, unhealthy and potentially injurious. We will continue to provide places of refuge and the responsible use of our facilities in the Wall Street area.”

Protestors marching up 6th Avenue from Duarte Square in celebration of their three-month anniversary on Saturday, Dec. 16. PHOTO BY pamela drew

Douglas Keister started out as a photographer, but it wasn’t until nearly a decade ago that he married his profession with two of his passions: writing and cemeteries. To Keister, who has documented both foreign and domestic resting places from Scotland and Italy to Oakland and Dixieland, cemeteries are “pure environments, [they’re] extremely evocative.”

This year, Keister published his latest deceased-themed work, Stories in Stone New York: A Field Guide to New York City Cemeteries and their Residents. We picked Keister’s brain to come up with his picks for the best burial grounds below 14th Street.

Keister’s Digs for the Departed

Trinity Church

Located in Lower Manhattan, this leafy plot dates back to the late 1600s and its famous residents, of course, are a collection of distinguished Caucasian men. The notables laid to rest here include Alexander Hamilton; though never a president, Hamilton served as aide to President George Washington, was the first U.S. secretary of the treasury and founded the Bank of New York. Among the other points of interest at this cemetery is the headstone of 5-year-old Robert Churcher (1676-1681), said to be the oldest in the churchyard.

St. Paul’s Chapel

The St. Paul’s Chapel crowd might be less illustrious than Trinity’s, but the space is no less green and meditative. Publisher John Holt (1721-1784) and actor George Frederick Cooke (1756-1812) found a final home here.

St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery

Despite a lack of headstones, this site is home to an underground burial vault that houses one of New York’s more famous founders: Petrus, or Peter, Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant served as the last director general of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, present-day New York. He converted the property into a family chapel in 1660. The crowd at the St. Mark’s crypt is a collection of political bigwigs, including Vice President Daniel Tompkins (1774-1825).

New York City Marble Cemetery

Not to be confused with the nearby New York Marble Cemetery (located at 41½ Second Ave.), this plot was started in 1831 and is comprised of a series of roughly 258 vaults. While the cemetery contains many impressive monuments to mark its crypts, the most famous person interred there was President James Monroe. Though his remains were eventually reburied in Virginia, a monument bearing his name still stands at the site.

Congregation Shearith Israel Cemeteries

While the location of the first Shearith Israel cemetery remains unknown, it is known that the congregation, mostly Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descent, was given a small piece of land in New Amsterdam in the mid-1600s for their dead. Their second burial site, used from 1805 to 1829, is still standing in Greenwich Village, though significantly smaller than its original acreage. Though the residents aren’t notable per se, the uniqueness of this plot makes it a destination.

The Trinity Churchyard in Lower Manhattan boasts one of Downtown’s more famous departed residents, Alexander Hamilton.
PHOTO BY DOUGLAS KEISTER