As members of the congregation will have seen, scaffolding continues to rise. Eagle Scaffolding, our fabulous riggers, have spent many days lifting pipes and planks to the roof from the garden, one or two at a time, and walking them from the west end down the length of the building. They build the outside towers first, then pass pipes through the window openings we made several month ago to erect a narrow scaffold on the clerestory walkway inside. The walkway is only 2’ wide, and so is the scaffolding. But it is as sturdy and comfortable as can be, thanks to our architect, Robert Bates (Walter Melvin Architects), and construction managers, Dan Wrzesinski and Lloyd Westerman of Westerman Construction.
In preparation for scaffolding the chancel windows behind the reredos, my assistant Bill Patriquin and I removed sections from the three windows. There is no access to them from the inside of the church – there’s no way to get behind the reredos, which was built years after the windows were first installed. Before removing the glass, I made a rubbing by taping paper over the panel and rubbing it with a crayon to record the pattern of the lead cames. This serves as a map of the window so that we know where pieces of glass belong after the window is removed. For all of the other windows, the rubbings will be done in the studios after the windows are taken out.
Here is the section I rubbed resting on the floor awaiting crating. Although it’s only about 2’ square, that one section weighs almost 30 pounds. There are 8 sections like this in each of the three lancets (the tall, thin vertical openings) of the center chancel window – 24 square panels in all, or 720 lbs. From the spring line up (the spring line is where the arch starts), there are an additional 36 sections in the tracery (the oddly spaced openings at the top). The stained glass panels are supported by bronze bars. The square bars that span the window on the inside are called saddle bars. The taller flat bars have an H profile. The sections of stained glass are held between the parallel legs of the H. There are 36 saddle bars and 12 H-bars in the center chancel window, totaling about 170 pounds. The entire center chancel window weighs, therefore, over half a ton.
Once the window sections came out, 
we had a nice view of the back of the reredos. Some of the carving goes completely around to the back. One mason left his initials in the mortar. It looks like “J L G” or “J C G.”
On December 5, arriving via the 53rd Street Subway stop, I was 
greeted by three camels out for their daily constitutional down
W. 53rd Street past the church. They were getting a break from their work at Radio City Music Hall, taking in the shopping on Fifth Avenue and munching a few trees along the way.
That same day we had a visit from the craftspeople who will actually be restoring our windows . The conservation studios for Phase I (the north side) visited the church for the first time. They’ve had to wait until the scaffolding was far enough along to allow them to get up close to the windows.
My assistant took the protective glazing (the 
plastic coverings) off one window so that we could all see the conditions on the outside of the glass. On the left you see the protective glazing still in place, looking yellowed and milky. On the right, it has been removed. The green arrow points to the aluminum mullion that held the plastic in place, and the pink arrow shows where it hit the stone frame. This is about 3” away from the surface of the stained glass.
Underneath the protective glazing, the lead came and solder holding the windows together is corroding. When lead corrodes, it becomes white. You can see the white spots all over the came. The center photo shows repair caulking in one of the tracery kites (we call them kites because of their shape, which is loosely like that of a child’s kite). This piece of glass is about 4” x 6”, but the caulking reveals only about 1” by 1”. The left photo shows the protective glazing that came off a section like this. For some reason, the contractor put 3 pieces of plastic over the glass – the rest of the window has only one layer.
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