In obstinate resistance to real estate speculation, the small early 20th-century St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church stood in the vicinity of the World Trade Center like an anachronistic residue of 1920s Manhattan, but was completely destroyed in the collapse of Tower 2 during the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Two decades later, after a difficult process of procuring donations and a dispute waged over the property between the local diocese and New York’s Port Authority, last 6 December – the feast of the saint the building is devoted to – the Greek congregation resumed its liturgies in a brand new temple located beside the 9/11 memorial, just 50 meters from the original spot, designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. Taking Byzantine architecture as a reference, here he stepped away from the skeletal grace of his Oculus station nearby, opting instead for a categorical circular volume flanked by four turrets and crowned with a ribbed dome, in the style of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Its cladding of fine plaques of Pentelic marble illuminated from within shines in the downtown night, with the golden gleam of the icons that decorate the interior.
