“Oh God,” she said. “Did you grab it?”

August 17, 2022 6:45 PM

"I peered up the street, toward Lexington Avenue, and saw garbage bags piled in front of each building. It was trash day. All of this would be landfill in a matter of hours. It made it all the way from 1883 to 2021. I shook out my bad shoulder as best I could, sighed, and picked up a box." How Christopher Bonanos rescued the 170-year history of The Church of the New Jerusalem from a New York City curb.
posted by How the runs scored (13 comments total)

Ahhh, ya beat me to it!
posted by praemunire at 7:35 PM on August 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

oh man, that's nice.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:48 PM on August 17, 2022

Oh, my. That is a WONDERFUL story.

I'm something of an accidental archivist, too, and I understand utterly the impulse to rescue boxes of cast-off documents - and the deep satisfaction and curiosity, at once satisfied and unfulfilled, of reading those old documents, learning, and guessing.

The Swedenborgian Church in San Francisco is one of the earliest Arts and Crafts buildings. It's a gorgeous place.

I'm so glad the author found a good home for all those materials - so very glad he made the effort to rescue them in the first place.

Thank you so much for posting this, How the runs scored. This is a lovely piece, and makes me very happy.
posted by kristi at 8:40 PM on August 17, 2022 [4 favorites]

Fascinating. The Swedenborgian church in St. Paul, Minnesota is still around and popular. Almost got married there but it was booked the day we wanted.
posted by misterpatrick at 9:39 PM on August 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

Helen Keller was a Swedenborgian.
posted by lapolla at 9:54 PM on August 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

Amazing article, I loved it. Thank you!
posted by The River Ivel at 12:06 AM on August 18, 2022

I found this unpaywalled version just lying there on the sidewalk.
posted by chavenet at 2:53 AM on August 18, 2022 [10 favorites]

“It didn’t rain that day”. Perfect.
posted by mhoye at 4:54 AM on August 18, 2022 [4 favorites]

What a lovely story. I'm feeling super sentimental this week, so the sentence, "A week or so later, he pulled up in front of my building in a small SUV, and we gently piled the Swedenborgians into the back," actually made me a little weepy. I'm very glad those records were saved.
posted by merriment at 5:14 AM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

My great-great-grandfather translated Emmanual Swedenborg's books from the latin...and is partially credited for bringing the Swedenborgian church to the US...
posted by schyler523 at 7:11 AM on August 18, 2022 [9 favorites]

John "Johnny Appleseed" Chapman was a Swedenborgian, which is why he didn't believe in grafting his apples.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 9:25 AM on August 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

This is just delightful. Thank you so much for sharing it!
posted by Bella Donna at 10:11 AM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

Well! That made stopping by MeFi to see if there was anything interesting well worth the time spent.
posted by DaveP at 2:11 PM on August 19, 2022