9/11 churches install metal detectors

Both buildings survived attack, have many tourists

NEW YORK — The two stone churches near the foot of Broadway, in the shadow of the World Trade Center, have seen fire and calamity and the sweep of American history, and through it all have kept their doors wide open.

But in a sign of the times, Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel both installed metal detectors this month. Visitors on their way to see Alexander Hamilton’s tomb in Trinity’s historic graveyard, or who want to sit in the pews at St. Paul’s where George Washington prayed and dust-covered rescue workers rested after 9/11 attacks, now have to pass through airport-style security checkpoints.

The metal detectors, installed March 1, will be there “until this world becomes a safer place,” said Trinity’s vicar, the Rev. Phillip Jackson.

Visitors to St. Paul’s passed through them Palm Sunday as they gathered to mark the start of Holy Week, which commemorates the story of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.

Church officials said the decision to step up security was not a response to any specific threat, but Jackson said a terrorist attack in the fall, when a man used a speeding truck to kill eight people on a nearby bike path, was “kind of a wake-up call.”

“While no one wants to have to implement such measures, it’s a reflection of the times we live in and our desire to keep our people — parishioners and visitors — safe,” Jackson said.

The two historic churches, which jointly serve a congregation established in 1697, are hardly alone in lower Manhattan when it comes to security measures.

People visiting the Statue of Liberty, the Sept. 11 memorial or the observation deck at One World Trade Center all have to pass through metal detectors. The New York Stock Exchange closed to tourists altogether after 9/11.

Yet the appearance of security checkpoints at two churches long seen as sanctuaries still struck some visitors as something new.

“I thought it was weird,” said Rosie Meeks, of San Antonio, who visited St. Paul’s with her 9-year-old grandson.

Kijuanna Winn, of Atlanta, said she had never seen metal detectors at a U.S. church before, though she was becoming used to seeing them elsewhere.

“I think I’ve become more accustomed to that now in traveling, with so many different attacks and gun violence,” Winn said. “It didn’t bother me.”

Mark Lennihan The Associated Press A security guard checks a visitor March 16 at the entrance to St. Paul’s Chapel in New York. Metal detectors were installed for the first time this month at Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel.