IT'S A TOLL ORDER
Electrician’s mission to fix SI church’s bells
The big, bronze bells at Staten Island’s oldest church are about to ring again after 30 years of silence — thanks to the dedication of a local electrician.
Each day, in heat and cold, Mike Cavenaugh, 68, has been climbing the treacherous 150 steps of the tower at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church as he works to make its 100-year-old bells chime again.
“I have the skills, so I give back,” he said of his mission to fix the electronic control system’s wiring. “It’s right.”
The 10 bells at the New Brighton church on St. Marks Place date to the 1800s and stopped working in the 1980s due to weather, time andd generations of roosting pigeons.ons.
The retired Cavenaugh and his electricianian part-partner, Tom Binder,r, both members of a local Kiwanis Club,ub, started givingg their time to thee renovation projectect earlier this year.
Binder died in his sleep in May, and Cavenaugh’sh’s son, Danny, 40, stepped in to helpelp finish the job.
“It’s the rightht thing to do,” saidid Danny Cavenaugh,gh, a 16-year memberer of the FDNY. “And if my father needs help with ananything, I’m going to help him.him.” The son has been at his dad’s side for every trip uup the ricketyety stairs. “HHe won’t even llet me go up there without him!” the elder CavenCavenaugh said. But Danny said it’s fofor the best. “It’s an impossiblesible rescue,” he explexplained. “If anytanything happenepened up there, it wwould be like, ‘See you later!’ It iis absolutely a confined space. You couldn’t get anything up there.”
It’s not clear when the job will be done, but Cavenaugh is hoping the bells will ring this week.
“I’m looking at hearing bells in a couple of days,” he said.
The sound will be music to parishioners’ ears.
“This is a blessing,” said Aurora Madrid, 58. “It’s like God is listening to us.”
The church was built in 1903, with the bell tower added in 1912, according to the church.
St. Peter’s pastor, Father Michael Cichon, is aching to hear the bells come back to life.
“Hopefully, it will remind people in the community of the presence of God,” he said.