Merry Christmas to our Builders!

Some of our school children singing Christmas carols and delivering cookies to the building crews!

Hard at work on Saturday

Is that Monsignor up there hard at work building on a Saturday?

Upon a closer look, it really is not Monsignor, but the contractors steadily working, even on the weekend to keep our project on schedule.
Footnote:  Monsignor is the photographer!

Lovely view of our new church in progress!

Preparing for Snow!

The following pictures show the snow guards that are applied to the roof to keep an avalanche of snow from slipping off the roof onto sidewalks or people!

MEN AT WORK

Cupola Outside

Meeting Room Roof

Inside window looking towards Manor Avenue

Cupola from the floor

These shots are taken from the floor looking up at the ceiling and the cupola

Mock Up Wall

This wall is created to show everyone what the exterior of our new church will look like and also show the process behind the finished stucco (see upper right cutaways).  Our new church will have a grey, fine textured stucco with a stone veneer knee wall that complements the existing stone buildings (rectory and convent) on our property.  The window is set in a dark bronze casing.  If you look closely, you can perhaps see Father Kean's handprint in the fresh stucco!

Roofing

Monday Morning

 A picture of the site from the school sidewalk this morning at 7:30am.  Work continues steadily to get under roof!

Statues & Stations

These statues and the stations of the cross will be removed from the current church and placed in the daily Mass chapel of the new church.  The daily Mass chapel is at the end of the wing off of the narthex closest to Manor Avenue.  Today the roof trusses of the chapel were under construction.

Bells are ringing (and being restored!)

 You might have noticed that our bell is missing!

The refurbishing of the bell is being contracted with McShane Bell Foundry, established in 1856.  McShane Bell Foundry is the company who originally fabricated our bell all those years ago!  It is a coincidence that we chose them for the refurbishing.
Did you know that our bell weighs 900lbs? McShane technicians came out to dismantle the bell's ringing equipment and clappers in preparation for the removal.  The bell was then safely loaded onto the trailer and transported back to the foundry where it will remain in the warehouse for the duration of the project.  To refurbish the bell, McShane will clean the bell and remove all the dirt, paint, and toxic patina (green color) from the bell's surface.  The bell will then go through several steps of being buffed using special surface conditioning pads specially designed to buff the bell's surface and bring out the beautiful luster without any damage to the bell.  The bell will then be polished, restoring it to the original shiny color which will be protected by a clear coat system so that it shines for many years to come!  The bell will be fitted with an electronic striker and a wire-less remote controller so that we can use several peal options (i.e. funeral, wedding, etc). The refurbish process will take about 90-120 days.  The bell will be placed in the steeple of our new church prior to dedication day.

If you are interested in seeing the original clapper, it is on display in the Holy Family Center, Community Meeting Room fireplace mantel.

Walls and all!

While the blog took a temporary break, the new church building did not!  Progress....the new church building continues to take shape every day with the walls in place and the insulation being applied.

Metal Decking & New Parking

The metal decking on the roof is underway as you can see pictured here.  Also pictured is part of the new parking lot.

Either the building is really tall or....

Monsignor McLoone is very short!

More concrete pics!

Pouring the concrete floor

This morning the work is moving along as they pour the concrete floor of our new church!  Stay tuned for more pictures.

Topping Off Ceremony

The clouds broke, the sun came out, and the sky was a cerulean blue as we celebrated the cross being raised on top of our new church on Monday afternoon, August 20th!

Monsignor delivers the blessing

The crowd gathers in

Parish Priests & Personnel , Construction Team, & Architects 

Almost there!

The cross is placed and welded on top of our new church!

Steeple Rising!

UP!

UP!

and  OVER!

Steel Frame - Steeple Base

The steel frame of the steeple base weighs 23,000 pounds and was welded together onsite.  A crane is preparing to lift the base onto the top of the tower for placement.

The base is lifted a few feet off the ground and a team is making sure that all of the feet are clean and level so that it sits properly on top of the tower.  The pointed piece of the steeple (seen in the blog post prior to this one)  will be placed on top of this section and then our cross will be put in place at the Topping Off Ceremony this afternoon at 3pm.

Steeple Frame

This is the steel frame of the steeple awaiting placement atop the steeple base.  Look closely and you can see the beam behind the yellow metal is the beam that everyone signed!

This is a closer view of that beam and if you look about halfway up on the left of the signed beam you will see a light colored square.  These are the cards that our homebound parishioners signed.  The cards are fixed to the beam....we wanted everyone to have the chance to share in this historic event!

Find the Differences!

Steering Committee, August 13th, Site Tour

Members not present: Mike McHugh, Dan Castaldi

Can you spot all the differences in these two photos?

Spiderman?

No, this isn't spiderman!  Tom Hill, a member of our Steering Committee, shot this photo of himself standing under the cupola of the new church during the site tour portion of our meeting!  This week they continue to work on the steel as well as curbing and sidewalks to prepare for the paving next week of the area of the parking lot in front of the school.

Parking Lot Infrastructure

Who knows what lies just below the asphalt?

Now you do!

This morning before 7AM, lots of dump trucks were arriving and dumping stone to fill the basin

Taking Shape!

You can really see the structure of the new church now!

Grow With Us!

Remember those flower seed packets you received at the Groundbreaking ceremony?  One of our parishioners gave our sacristan Tom Keenan this picture of the flowers the seeds produced in the garden!