There were 2 fires in the church that we know of: one in the sacristy and one in the choir loft.
From information submitted by Ralph Weaver, maintenance engineer; Fr. Mertz, pastor from 1970-1975; and Fr. Adrian, parish priest and then pastor, 1968-1978
The sacristy fire took place in the early 1970s. This was in the middle of the afternoon and believed to have been started by kids who came into the open church and were probably playing with matches. The altar cloth on the main altar was burned, but nothing else in the church caught on fire and Fr. Mertz was able to take the Blessed Sacrament to the convent chapel for safekeeping. Burning did occur in the vestment cabinet in the sacristy however and this spread quickly. Luckily someone discovered it right away and so the fire did not quite make it to the roof. Soot had to be cleaned off the baldichino (the white marble dome over the high altar) using cherry pickers to get up that high. (Some years later a cleaning company tried to clean the smoke-damaged ceiling above, but it couldn’t be done without damaging the artwork on the wood.) The floor in the lavatory in the sacristy is still smoke-damaged and there are stains on the floor around St. Joseph’s altar. We are very lucky the fire did not spread to the wooden ceiling or we might not have much of a church left today.
From information submitted by Ralph Weaver, maintenance engineer, and Tony Maghrak, electrician—
In 1988 smoke was discovered coming from the room off the choir that houses the organ motor and blower. Apparently the organ had been left on for a long time and the old wiring overheated. There was only smoke damage in the room, and the insurance company had to wipe off soot from every piece of exposed music stored there. But the organ motor and blower had to be replaced, as well as some control wires under the floor that went to the organ. This led to an extensive rewiring job that went all the way from the sacristy to the choir. Originally the wires were run through the church walls from the basement up to the choir loft. The old wiring had actually melted to the sides of the old conduits. These were rerouted so the conduits now go from the sacristy, through the storage room behind the altar, and up through the false ceiling beneath the roof, all the way to the choir loft. This was no small task. At the time there was no way to get through the dome above the altar, so a 2 foot square hole had to be cut through the 3 foot thick stone arch above the ceiling. Also there were no catwalks, so men with their equipment had to proceed very carefully on the framing of the hand-painted wooden ceiling which we see from the church proper. One false move would have sent someone or his equipment crashing through the ceiling to the floor far below. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the men who did this dangerous work to rewire the organ, make it functional again and put in catwalks to make future work above the ceiling easier and safer.
The Bell Tower
Ralph Weaver, maintenance engineer, and Fr. Robert Monaghan, pastor since 1978
The 150-foot-high bell tower stands as a beacon to people in the neighborhood and is perhaps the most prominent feature of Incarnation Church. It houses one large, solid brass bell which was tolled after funerals until the 1990s. The bell is about eight feet tall and has a brass striker six inches in diameter. A cross sits atop the tower, which is also eight feet tall.
In the 1990s several changes were made in the tower. Around 1993 a huge storm caused lightning to strike the cross and 60-mile-per-hour winds tore off the north and west sides of the copper roof. These blew across 38th Street and landed on the high wires, shutting off power in the entire neighborhood. The copper was recovered and the roof rebuilt on those two sides, and the cross was replaced. It had always been oriented east-to-west, but it was then turned to face the front of the church and is now visible along the length of 38th Street.
The tower bell is no longer rung. Eventually the tuckpointing got so bad that vibrations from ringing it could cause bricks to be knocked loose from the tower. So a carillon was installed in the mid-1990s and plays before each Mass, after funerals, and at noon and 6:00 p.m. each day.
How Many People Does It Take to Change a Lightbulb in the Church?
Ralph Weaver, maintenance engineer, and Tony Maghrak, electrician
Have you ever wondered how the light bulbs in the large chandeliers are changed? Well, in the space between the wooden ceiling and the tiled roof, there are catwalks that go to platforms over each of the chandeliers. Here there is a hand-cranked winch above each lamp for lowering and raising the cable attached to the lamp. When the bulbs must be replaced, each chandelier is lowered to the floor where the bulbs are changed and the cable is then raised back up. This requires two people: one to operate the crank above the ceiling and another to guide the lamp to the floor and change the bulbs. Today they communicate with walkie-talkies, but in days past they had to shout very loud to hear each other. There are five light bulbs in each chandelier (each of which is about 3 feet tall).
Originally the winches were not ratcheted with gears, so once the pin was pulled from the winch, the full weight of the chandelier was on the person operating the crank. And until the organ was rewired in 1988, there were no catwalks or platforms to stand on. At that time, they were installed and the cranks were replaced with geared winches so the operator now has more control.
After this the chandeliers were also cleaned. They were thought to be wrought iron, but cleaning revealed them to be brass. After being cleaned, they were coated with varnish to protect them, so they have remained the bright gold color we see today.
Fire in the Church
