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Tribeca's
Hallelujah Chorus
Text and Photos by Carl Glassman
Each Sunday morning, congregants file to their seats in the spare, newly
converted sanctuary at Greenwich and Vestry Streets, accompanied by the
infectious rhythms of a three-piece band and a gospel chorus. By the time
soloist Carolyn Miller has belted out her second or third rock-influenced
spiritual of the morning, the polished, electrifying force of the music
is sending bodies swaying, arms lifting, and 200 voices ringing in song.
Into the sleepy Sunday stillness of northern Tribeca, old-time religion
has arrived.
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The evangelical Christian congregation, called Faith Exchange Fellowship,
moved into the 15,000- square-foot space of the commercial building
in May, after more than three years of searching for a Downtown
landlord who would rent or sell them a ground-floor property. That
search began after the congregation's upstairs home at 90 West Street,
across the street from the World Trade Center, was destroyed on
Sept. 11.
Pastor Dan Stratton, who leads the congregation with his wife, Ann,
said he was turned down by owners of 80 buildings.
"They said, 'We don't want a church on the ground floor, it
sets the wrong tone for the building,'" recalled Stratton,
46, a former Yale football player whose hefty, 6-foot 2-inch frame
and booming preacher's voice seem a good fit for this sprawling,
ground-floor sanctuary.
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Stratton is well aware that Tribeca is alien territory for his fundamentalist
congregation. "Lower Manhattan has done a pretty good job of
shutting Jesus out," he said. But he insists that he wants his
church to fit in.
"I think we'll be surprised by who will end up coming here as
we become part of the community."
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Evangelical congregations are hardly new to the area. Living Word
Community Church, under Pastor Tommy Nichols, has long been in the
neighborhood and meets at the Knitting Factory. Mosaic Manhattan,
led by Gregg Ferrah, holds well-attended services at P.S./I.S. 89.
But Faith Exchange, with its own space and a rent of $40,000 a month,
according to Stratton, is now the most visible.
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Stratton made the church all the more eye-catching by putting
up a green awning that wraps around the corner of the building.
(The sign went up without the Landmarks Preservation Commission's
approval, according to the agency's spokeswoman, Diane Jackier.)
"Our neighbors love us, we are an asset to this community,
and they know it. Amen, " he told his congregation one
Sunday last month.
While that pronouncement may sound like prayerful positive
thinking, Stratton does get high praise from second-floor
neighbors Elizabeth Rossi and Sadie Nardini, proprietors of
Shri Yoga, who had worried that the jubilant music and singing
would shatter the peace in their studio.
"We weren't sure what to expect, but he was instantly
more than accommodating," said Nardini, who lauded Stratton
for reordering the music portion of the service to avoid a
disruption of classes. "Actually [the church] is kind
of a bonus," she added. "It sounds like life downstairs.
I like that."
A band practice at 8:30 one Sunday morning provoked a swift
complaint from a neighbor across the street, Steve Boyce,
and a vow from Pastor Dan that it would not happen again.
While the early playing stopped, Boyce said the church's open
windows still allow more hallelujahs, handclapping and preaching
into his apartment than he cares to hear. "They've said
they'd be putting in air conditioning, but that hasn't happened
yet," Boyce said. "So we all feel like we're participating
in the services here."
"My goal is to get to know you, and be a blessing to you,"
Stratton said of his neighbors. "And it's kind of weird because
now, for the first time, I'm really in a neighborhood."
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Indeed, the church had been a neighbor to no one since its unlikely
beginning more than 20 years ago on the floor of the Mercantile Exchange
in 4 World Trade Center.
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Stratton, a former commodities trader who turned to full-time
pastoring six years ago, said he had no preaching ambitions
back in 1984 when he began reading his bible during lulls
in trading.
"The guys would say, 'What, are you nuts, man? You're
out of your mind.' They were really busting my chops."
To keep them quiet, Stratton placed a box by his phones and
said he would respond to comments if they were written down
and dropped in the box. He called it the "Faith Exchange."
When the questions and comments grew numerous, he put the
messages in a newsletter placed under the box.
The circulation of Stratton's newsletters grew to 1,500 by
1991, when a colleague began handing them out in other exchanges
in the building. Stratton, trading crude oil at the time,
was becoming known as the man to turn to for bible talk. He
began holding bible study classes in his office at the end
of the trading day. When attendance outgrew the space, he
rented a room across the street at
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90 West Street, then
took on more and more space in the building as his following
expanded.
Ever since the World Trade Center collapse sent flames shooting
through 90 West Street, Stratton's congregation has been meeting
in hotels and looking for a permanent home. Ann Stratton said
she was so happy when she met the landlord of their new Greenwich
Street space that she cried. "God called us to this neighborhood,"
she said.
Members of the multiracial, economically diverse congregation
travel from around the city to the church's Sunday morning and
Thursday evening services. Some come to ask Pastor Dan to pray
for deliverance from illnesses, financial worries, marital problems
and a host of other troubles, big and small.
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At one Thursday service last month, Stratton handed a formerly
homeless woman $100, prayed for a woman whose husband was in
prison, and for another whose father was desperately ill. A
man dressed in a security guard's uniform raised his hand as
Stratton preached. The pastor placed his hand on the man's shoulder
as the guard quietly confided that two days before, on the brink
of suicide, he had given up his gun. The guard had been working
in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and had not yet rid himself
of demons from that day.
"The World Trade has changed a lot of people, a lot of
people are going through anxiety and stress," the guard
said later, asking not to be identified. "Hopefully as
I keep coming here I'll find serenity. I think this is the spot."
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Many congregants are drawn to the reputed healing powers
of Pastor Ann, who says that her prayers, along with
the laying on of her hands, have vanquished cancers,
returned sight to the blind, rid HIV carriers of the
virus, and once revived a man who suffered a heart attack
during a service. It is a gift she said she discovered
at age 20, and many in the congregation insist that
it is real. They stand in line to be healed.
"She's awesome," said Rosa Rivera, a nurse
from Washington Heights who has been a congregation
member since 1997. Like others, Rivera can be brought
to her knees when Pastor Ann summons divine help. "You
fall under the power of the Holy Spirit," she said.
"You can't stand in the presence of God."
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Unbeknown to the church's Tribeca neighbors, they too
are remembered in prayer at Faith Exchange Fellowship.
Standing before his congregation, Pastor Dan asked that
the church's presence in the neighborhood improve children's
schoolwork, strengthen husbands and wives' relationships,
boost families' finances, and even lead to greater accomplishments
by the community board.
"We believe this is the healthiest and safest part
of New York," Stratton said. "We're here now."
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