NEW YORK (RNS) — In the months after 9/11, St. Paul’s Chapel, a small, undamaged church sitting 100 yards from where the Twin Towers once stood, quickly turned into a relief center for recovery workers. Known as the “Little Chapel That Stood,” the church kept its doors open 24/7 for nine months, providing food, prayers and support to responders in between shifts.

The Rev. Phillip A. Jackson, rector of Trinity Church, St. Paul’s parent Episcopal church, said the chapel’s disaster response was tied to its long history of supporting the Lower Manhattan community in times of trial. 

“When 9/11 happened, it was in our neighborhood, and so we responded to that,” he told RNS last week. “The physical proximity, the scale of the disaster … it made us realize that this neighborhood is not just an abstraction, it’s our place … that we have a fundamental role in caring for it, in caring for its people.” 

As word of the chapel’s aid spread beyond New York City, St. Paul’s received messages of peace and hope from all over the world. Among them were messages from a group of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing survivors, who sent thousands of origami paper cranes to the church. The gesture is meant to convey hope for the future, according to Japanese tradition. 

Twenty-five years later, the cranes are on display again in the chapel, alongside a new massive origami structure designed for a commemorative exhibition. The new installation is a string of 2,977 paper cranes: one for each person killed in the 9/11 attacks. The “Ever Present” exhibition, on display at the chapel until Oct. 1, also features artifacts left there in the months after 9/11. 

Last week, workers started hanging the origami structure from the chapel ceiling. The installation, which floats above the 17th-century chapel’s nave, was commissioned to origami master Talo Kawasaki. The Japan-born artist, who lived in New York City in 2001, said he recalls the towers crashing down and the screams of people running away from lower Manhattan. He said working on this project has been like no other.

“I cannot imagine anybody having this opportunity and have it not mean the chance of the lifetime, as well as the honor to do something good for the memory of all who passed away,” he said. “It’s just been a real wonder for me.”

The strings of paper cranes were folded by Kawasaki, his assistant and church members who came to help. At some point, Kawasaki also recruited tourists who passed by the chapel to assist. At an origami convention held in New York in July, he folded nearly 1,600 paper cranes with the help of attendees.

Kawasaki, who cut each sheet of blue paper used for the structure himself, said the choice of color came naturally: The team wanted the piece to reflect survivors’ accounts of how bright the New York City sky looked that day. Shaping the strings in an infinity loop was meant to make the installation a symbol of  “unending eternal love and connection,” Kawasaki noted.

Other pieces in the installation include the “Vestment of Unity,” a priest’s robe worn by volunteer clergy leading worship services in the months after 9/11, emblazoned with badges from first responders. It also features drawings and letters selected from among 13,000 messages sent to the church by schoolchildren in the weeks after the attacks, with the aim of reaching first responders and survivors. “You all worked so hard saving lives; we are very thankful to have firemen like you,” read one letter.

The exhibition also includes sculptures molded from metal retrieved from ground zero.

Since 2001, Trinity’s community has tried to maintain connection with the victims’ families and first responders who were involved with the chapel in the aftermath of the attacks. The congregation meets with them during its annual remembrance, Jackson said. 

Jackson spoke with survivors of the 9/11 attacks for the first time in 2015, when he joined Trinity. Members who share memories of the attacks have remained close, and many of them still attend services. 

Cindy Jay, a retired healthcare worker who lives in Jersey City, joined the church in 2000. She remembers receiving emails from the church the day after the attacks, explaining that the church was intact and immediately calling for volunteers. 

“People were living what they believed — there’s a disaster, and people run to help,” she said. “… You actually live what you believe, and that’s what happened there.” 

On Friday, the congregation will begin its remembrance rituals by ringing the Bell of Hope, a bronze memorial situated in St. Paul’s cemetery and gifted by the city of London after 9/11. Jackson will ring it in the pattern of four fives at 8:46 a.m. — the time the first plane hijacked by al-Qaida terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower. 

Then, Trinity Parish will host a ceremony reading the names of each of the victims, which is expected to take three hours. In the evening, it will hold a concert to honor their memory. 

Jackson said he usually relies on the hope he found in the message of Jesus’ resurrection to anchor his addresses to church members and other attendees at the 9/11 remembrance ceremonies. 

“That’s really the essence of what I say because … the world is a place of no shortage of horrors and evils that happen,” he said.