ROOT BOOT SUIT

AN ARTIST IS demanding that Trinity Church return the 9/11 memorial sculpture he donated — and the rector excommunicated — to a courtyard at the Manhattan house of worship, according to a lawsuit.

Steven Tobin’s “The Trinity Root” was placed in Trinity Church’s courtyard at Broadway and Wall St. in September 2005, about a year after the parish commissioned the work. The cast bronze sculpture — a massive 13-foot-tall, 15-foot-wide and 20-foot-deep tangle of roots weighing more than 6,000 pounds — replicates a century-old sycamore tree that was destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, according to the suit Tobin filed Wednesday in Manhattan Federal Court.

Though it was lost, the sycamore in the churchyard of a Trinity chapel “miraculously sheltered St. Paul’s Chapel from the blast and debris and preserved the chapel intact from damage.” And when the tree fell with enough force to expose its roots, historic tombstones in the church yard were spared.

Tobin, whose “signature works have been large structures of root systems of trees,” proposed making a sculpture of the tree’s root system — “containing within its patina actual DNA from victims of the attack that came to rest in soil within St. Paul’s churchyard.” He proposed a “permanent installation” in the courtyard, and he donated time and materials he said totaled $1 million. Now 60 and living in Coopersburg, Pa., the artist said he took a home-equity loan to help cover the sculpture’s costs.

“The Trinity Root” was installed with much fanfare, but the parish soured on the work’s placement — and, it appears, the sculpture itself — in May 2015. That’s when Kathleen Rogers, Tobin’s rep, learned church officials wanted to get rid of the artwork.

“To her and Tobin’s surprise, she was told that Trinity Church’s new rector, the Rev. Dr. William Lupfer, who had taken office in February 2015, considered the sculpture ugly and wanted it to be removed,” the lawsuit alleges. A church official later told Rogers, 59, that Lupfer, 55, “intended to send ‘The Trinity Root’ away because he did not want nonparishioners and ‘hordes of strangers’ to continue to crowd the church’s courtyard.”

Tobin said he learned in a Dec. 14, 2015, conversation with a church official that Trinity had moved it without telling him, during the overnight hours two days earlier. He also found out the sculpture was damaged in the move. The church official said at the time that Tobin could repair the sculpture — at his own expense, the suit says.

Tobin’s suit demands that Trinity move the sculpture back from West Cornwall, Conn., and pay him at least $200,000 in damages.

Asked about the suit, a church spokesman said, “While we have no comment on this litigation, Trinity is pleased to have the sculpture at Trinity’s retreat center, where it will be among a collection of planned sites that will encourage prayerful reflection, remembrance and spiritual transformation.”