Great News for Christ Church

Today, I’m writing more with a shout of celebration than any clear-headed reflection. On Monday, at the Waltham City Council meeting, Christ Church's application for a Community Preservation Grant in the amount of $175,000 was approved for future renovations.

The CPA is a statewide program that cities can vote to participate in which a tax surcharge goes into a fund to subsidize projects for affordable housing, historic preservation and open space. For our application to be approved, it went through a maze of city boards and departments, ultimately to City Council at 11:20 pm on Monday night (and that after Councillor Gary Marchese got it moved earlier on the agenda. I heard they were there until 3 a.m.) Thanks to City Council, and especially Waltham Community Preservation Committee Program Manager Bill Durkee.

Hopefully, renovations on our building will begin in the fall, and we’ll be looking at other interior work that the parish will subsidize. The CPA funds will go toward the re-pointing and waterproofing of our tower and restoration of several of the windows. There is, after all, no reason to fix the peeling plaster in the narthex until we know that the whole structure will stay dry.

Christ Church is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a unique example of shingle style architecture. There are pieces of Waltham history everywhere you look. Robert Treat Paine Jr. was elected senior warden of Christ Church in 1897. He was a man of a lot of privilege, the grandson of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Robert Treat Paine Sr. and a very wealthy lawyer. His home, Stonehurst, was designed by famed architect HH Richardson.  Paine’s wife, Lydia Lyman Paine, died suddenly during the construction of the church. The chancel windows at the church are dedicated in her memory. The woman kneeling in red in the window is based on a picture of Lydia herself.

Each Sunday as we celebrate the Eucharist, I face our “Great West Window.” The dominant images are, of course, Jesus, Mary and other ordinary stained glass fare.  But, if you look closely, you also see more unusual images: a lathe, a car, a watch mechanism, gear pump, bicycle wheel, spindle and shuttle and a foundry ladle.  The industrial history of our city is all there. Looking even more closely, the window is full of tiny rivets.

Ironically enough, this Sunday we won’t be in the building at all, and will share worship in the garden. On Saturday, July 16,we’ll have our History Day open house and share Historic Morning Prayer according to the prayer book they used at the consecration of the church at 10 a.m., and offer tours of the church from 10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. Please come and see!