Donald Gallagher is a colorful guy. Literally. His hair, beard and clothes are sprinkled with multi-colored specks of paint. He professionally paints houses, but his latest “job” has taken 37 years — and counting.
Over these years, Gallagher, who said he is “self-taught,” has single-handedly restored the historic and beautiful Grace Church Van Vorst Episcopal at Erie and Third streets in Downtown Jersey City.
“I am still very pleased, very happy it’s so authentic,” he reflected. “If Detlef Lienau walked in today, (he would say) it held up so well.”
Lienau, a German architect born in Holstein who eventually lived in Jersey City, designed the church in 1853. He was also one of the 29 founding members of the American Institute of Architects.
Gallagher, now 76, did his research at Columbia University and found photos of the original church so he could replicate the patterns and colors to a T. It is tres colorful with arches and alcoves.
Copying the original art is almost complete. Now, he’s designing the organ loft art, a project that commenced once the organ and pipes were removed.
In the loft, he created a tribute to women of the Bible by incorporating photos of women from the congregation and the Downtown neighborhoods as models. He dressed them and then asked local photographers to photograph them. Gallagher took the finished photographs and placed each one – like Eve, Rebecca and Sarah — in circles on the wall. For this project, the church brought a bucket lift into the church. Most of the other art restoration used scaffolding.
“I enjoyed sharing this project with the neighborhood,” he said.
Grace Church draws people primarily from the neighborhood and uses the church space for activities during the week. There are no benches; instead, chairs are used for worship on Sunday. A senior citizen exercise group meets there every weekday. Next door in the parish hall, the church feeds people seven days with as many as 80 on the weekends, according to the Rev. Laurie Wurm, the rector for 11 years. On Sundays, about 70 people worship in person while others still use Zoom.
There are only two remaining Episcopal churches left in Jersey City: Grace and St. Paul’s Church in Bergen on Duncan Ave., which merged with the former Incarnation. Both parishes co-sponsor the Triangle Community Center in Greenville, an outreach for the poor.
Grace Church has a storied history under Rector Paul Moore, who integrated the church — before civil rights were protected — in the early 1950s. He eventually became the Episcopal bishop of New York and was an unrepentant liberal.
By the early 1980s, though, Grace Church was no longer holding services and the building was used for storage. The bishop at the time wanted to restore it and sent the Rev. Scott Kallstrom, a young, energetic pastor, to revive the congregation, which he did.
Around 1987, Gallagher, who had lived in the area, volunteered his services after the exterior was restored.
“I knew it was something I could do,” he said. “Enhancement of that place could bring it back to life.”
In all this time, he has taken no salary and only was compensated about $5,000, he said. The church has paid for paint and supplies.
Gallagher left the Catholic church after high school and only returned to organized religion once he commenced this project. He has been worshipping regularly at Grace now and sings in the choir – bass.
“This has been central to his life,” Wurm said.
A Go Fund Me page, gofundme.com/f/help-donald-gallagher-complete-an-historic-work, has been set up to raise funds so Gallagher can document the major restoration project in book form.
While Gallagher’s goal has been faithful restoration, one change he has made is on the arch over the sanctuary, which originally urged silence before God. Now it borrows from St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians (2) and captures the mission in the 21st century:
“My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness,” it reads.
God’s grace buoyed Gallagher to restore an architectural gem simply because he wanted to.
The Rev. Alexander Santora is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, NJ 07030. Email: padrealex@yahoo.com; X: @padrehoboken.
