Published in the Courier News on May 6, 2002

NEW YORK -- The Rev. Ed Murphy asks God to comfort a ground zero crane operator, who is having difficultly sleeping after finding his 17th body part -- a piece of skull with hair attached.

The gruesome images flood the worker''s dreams each night. He typically wakes up in a cold sweat after four hours, unable to lay his head down until the next night.

The Rev. Ed Murphy leads volunteers in prayer recently before heading to the World Trade Center site to assist workers. Staff photo by Mary Iuvone

Lauren Caruso of Piscataway takes on a dirty pan after preparing scrambled eggs at about 3 a.m. for workers at ground zero. Staff photo by Nicholas Clunn

Murphy -- rector of St. Paul''s Episcopal Church in Bound Brook -- offered his petition to God outside his church, as he prepared 16 Central Jerseyans for a moving experience in Lower Manhattan.

On this night, they will aid ground zero workers at St. Paul''s Chapel and feel a mix of emotions -- satisfaction for aiding the recovery effort, sympathy for the hardened workers and exhaustion for laboring when they normally sleep -- all in the course of 12 hours.

Intense reminders of Sept. 11 also will inundate their senses and remind them of what happened here.

Makeshift memorials dot the streets, fill the church and stretch across the neighboring ground zero viewing platform. The perpetual roar and beeps of trucks and machines operating at the worksite are heard in the chapel.

The 235-year-old church is a block from ground zero and is one of two places that crane operators, firefighters and other workers eat, sleep and unwind.

"It''s a peaceful place among chaos," says David Fein, an emergency medical technician for the New York City Fire Department.

Murphy, who also is chaplain to the crane operators at ground zero, formed this night''s shift after chapel officials alerted him that the operation needed volunteers.

Most gathered outside St. Paul''s in Bound Brook are parishioners from St. Paul''s and other Central Jersey Episcopalian churches. For many, this will be their first time at ground zero.

Murphy has been there dozens of times since Sept. 11, giving confessions and communion, blessing cranes and bodies.

Although his flock in Lower Manhattan is rugged and strong, the death and danger around them have no trouble penetrating their tough exteriors.

"When you are touching death all the time, you are a little bit more real," Murphy says.

Light bulbs on chandeliers hanging from the church''s roughly three-story-high ceiling dim to soothe napping ground zero workers as their colleagues grab disposable dishes and review the selection: a chicken and penne entree, bread and two soups -- tomato basil and a hearty chicken noodle.

The Episcopalian chapel -- part of the Trinity Church parish -- uses donations to buy meals from local restaurants. It once dished out about 3,000 meals a day. It now averages about 1,000.

Because storage is scant, volunteers make frequent trips to nearby grocery stores to replenish supplies.

A shift organizer gives a volunteer $60 and a dolly after workers drink all the bottled water.

"Would you like something to eat?" Lauren Caruso asks loudly, but in a motherly way. The 43-year-old financial adviser from Piscataway feels compelled to feed. She says the workers -- most of them men -- need to eat.

Except for the activity around the casual dinner buffet at the rear of the church, the scene is mellow. The low light reveals firefighters, police officers and crane operators sitting by themselves in wooden pews or talking softly with colleagues. A volunteer with a mop swabs the floor around them.

Parish officials began the 24-hour, seven-day operation Sept. 13, just two days after airplanes crashed into the towers.

The volunteers are a diverse lot, from different backgrounds, sometimes from different states, but are always a curiosity to ground zero workers, who sometimes ask where they are from or what they do for a living. Regular volunteers remember when college students from Seattle worked at the chapel during their spring break. Sometimes staff members from law firms come to wash dishes.

Murphy leads seven volunteers from the Bound Brook church to a firefighters'' memorial along the Hudson River. Posted above photographs of fallen firefighters are fire department patches from around the country, including the black, yellow and orange insignia of the Peapack-Gladstone Fire Department.

A white van double-parks outside the flood-lit chapel and unloads eight workers, who file inside. A volunteer clicks a handheld counter as each passes the guarded front gate.

From 8 p.m. Wednesday to 8 a.m. Thursday, the Bound Brook volunteers help 359 people. It''s a popular place, but appreciated for different reasons.

Larry Osa, a ground zero security guard from the Bronx, sums up in one word why he likes the chapel: coffee.

"I was born and raised on coffee," he says, walking back to his post. "I usually go for three or four rounds each night."

Another security officer, John Jackson, stops in to chat with co-workers. On this trip, he leaves with coffee and a roll.

"I like everything they have," says the six-month ground zero veteran. "It''s all good."

Says one New York City police officer: "Every night is like gourmet to me because there is nothing open at this time."

But not everyone comes here for food and drink. Some are here to worship.

Rick Cole, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspector from Washington state, is using his break to pray. Tonight he asks God to comfort the relatives of World Trade Center victims and also to protect his own family.

Men dressed in coveralls and boots fill all nine cots located on the chapel''s main floor. Others nap in pews, where New Yorkers have worshipped since the 18th century.

St. Paul''s present incarnation is a short chapter in its storied existence. Built in 1766, it is Manhattan''s oldest public building in continuous use, according to the church. It is also where George Washington prayed after his inauguration in 1789.

Colonial memorial plaques that line the church''s walls hold an extra significance -- they are an ideal place to tape the homemade cards, banners and posters that already cover nearly every wall and table in the Georgian-style building.

The well-wishes from visitors and students also blanket the fence outside. Baseball caps, pictures of fallen rescue workers and poems create a wall, of sorts, and block the view of the church from the street.

One poster reads, "Freedom Soars at East Amwell Township School, Ringoes, New Jersey." Student-drawn pictures of eagles surround the slogan.

While many workers nap, the Bound Brook volunteers take on the busiest portion of the 12-hour shift: breakfast.

Five volunteers crowd the modest kitchen and dance around each other to avoid collisions. Jean Smithies from the Church of the Holy Spirit in Lebanon Township wraps bagels in cellophane after Murphy''s wife, Maggie, slices each in half. Nearby is Caruso, who is scrambling eggs in an industrial-size frying pan.

"The most I''ve ever made (before) is three," she says.

This is Caruso''s first time at the chapel. She found out about it from her cousin.

Caruso says later that she was moved by the workers'' appreciation of her efforts and the atmosphere around the massive site, which she saw on television and read about in newspapers, but never fully grasped until now.

"You can be here in New Jersey and see the pictures, but it''s not the same as being in the area and seeing it for yourself," she says.

It allows Bridgewater Middle School teacher Anne Fogarty to establish a deeper connection with the Sept. 11 tragedy.

"I felt removed, and I didn''t want to feel removed," says the 38-year-old Bound Brook mother. "I live in New Jersey, for crying out loud. It''s only 45 minutes away."

Debbi Clarke is reclining in a pew. She is fully dressed and snoring. This is the first time the six-time ground zero volunteer has napped here.

The aspiring Episcopalian minister says later that the nightly workload has diminished. In past visits, she performed dozens of wake-up calls for sleeping workers. Tonight, there were only a few.

"It was so quiet, that''s why I went to sleep," the Westfield parent says.

Sunrise.

The Bound Brook volunteers have their picture taken in front of St. Paul Chapel''s altar before leaving. The people who were strangers 14 hours ago huddle and joke with each other.

Most are filled with a sense of accomplishment.

Caruso says sending white T-shirts, flashlights and work gloves to ground zero a few days after the attack partially satisfied her desire to help. The contentment she feels today is more profound.

Fogarty says the gift of time is better than any other.

"It gave me a chance to be there for somebody else who was doing something really difficult," she says.

Murphy later explains that the contact with ground zero workers -- the dishing of food onto their plates, the conversations -- is why volunteers are so moved.

He is touched by how people are not afraid to open up and display their emotions here.

"The expressions, I''ve never seen such open expressions," he says.

The emotional honesty Murphy and others witness at ground zero is symbolized by a steel cross the crane operators made for him.

Its crossbars are steel, rough and unpolished.

Nicholas Clunn can be reached at (908)707-3144 or nclunn@c-n.com.

ON THE WEB

Find out more about St. Paul''s Chapel and its parish on the Internet at www.saintpaulschapel.org or www.trinitywallstreet.org.