This afternoon, to celebrate the swearing-in of Barack Obama as the nation's forty-fourth president, twelve men and women in the belfry of Trinity Church will strike a full peal for over three hours.
From Newsday:
"The exact sound cannot be heard anywhere else in the country: Trinity has the only change-ringing tower - in which each bell is rung individually - with 12 bells, two more than the National Cathedral in Washington.
"A full peal of Trinity's bells consists of 5,000 changes. A "change" occurs when each bell is rung individually in a sequence, without duplication. The ringers, who are about 20 feet below, yank ropes to swing the bells and cause the bells' clappers to strike."
For a video demonstration and more specific details, visit the Newsday feature.
A few interesting bytes of significance:
Washington took the oath of office down the street from the second Trinity Church. The first had been burned in 1776; the second was under construction when Washington took his oath. In the scene above, painted for the centennial of the first inauguration, the third and present Trinity Church is depicted mistakenly.
Trinity Church will be giving the full peal at the end of Wall Street, whose troubles this fall very much contributed to the outcome of the 2008 election.
Columbia College began in the basement of Trinity Church (the first structure) in 1754. The college has since graduated many illustrious public figures, but it has never been able to boast a president until today. Another nice Trinity/Columbia twist is that buried in the church's cemetery is arguably its most important graduate--Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, who helped create the financial system now teetering and which Columbia's more recent graduate inherits this afternoon.
Comments