8,000 pipes and a decade in the making: Manhattan's Trinity Church has a new organ

An iconic Manhattan church has completed the monumental feat that is replacing a pipe organ.

“It’s a rare, once-in-a-lifetime thing that you see those size organ pipes being installed in a space like Trinity Church,” said Melissa Attebury, music director of the more than 300-year-old Wall Street parish.

Many have and will continue to experience this mortal plane without ever witnessing the sight that is a pipe organ’s giant console crossing Broadway by forklift, or its 32-foot-long wooden pipes being wheeled through the Financial District on dollies and then carefully hoisted into place via a custom gantry while strapped to an aluminum truss.

Those are just the final steps. Trinity’s sparkling new pipe organ took a decade to plan and produce.

“Organs are basically the sonic equivalent