Column: A Story of Beauty for Ashes at Cos Cob Park

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By Drew Williams

Cos Cob Park was opened in 2015, providing nine glorious acres of recreation and respite on Cos Cob Harbor.

I have not counted, but I am reliably informed that the park landscape is decorated with 169 shade and ornamental trees, 192 evergreens, and nearly 3,400 shrubs and perennials. It is also home to the exceptionally-beautiful 9/11 Greenwich Memorial.

This green and verdurous parkland did not, however, always look like this. A century ago this site held the world’s first experimental power station, bringing electrical power needed to run trains from Long Island to New Haven, Danbury, New Canaan and White Plains. The power plant opened in 1907 and was staffed by 150 men, working around the clock. The main structure was built four stories down into bedrock, with six-foot-thick support pillars, and walls two-foot-thick. The turbine room was home to eight, six-story-high turbines, each the size of a house, sitting in a row. If just one of the huge wheels inside of one of the turbines ever broke loose (which had happened in other power plants), it would have cut a path of destruction for ten miles, destroying everything in its way!

The chimney stacks spewed out what the locals referred to as ”Cos Cob snow,” which was the fly ash spread by prevailing winds. Gradually, the fly ash extended the site far out into the river. Of such a sight, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “This is a valley of ashes — a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke, and finally with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.” 

In 1987, the Metro-North Commuter Railroad closed the power plant, moving its operations to a new generating station nearby. Standing derelict on a bed of contaminated soil, the power station was left to rot — until a visionary, radical demolition and decontamination plan prevailed and ultimately unearthed this beautiful waterfront park.

For me, this is a striking visual demonstration of our Kingdom-calling as the people of God. Like the visionaries who looked at this pile of rubble and scarred earth and saw the possibility of restoration and beauty, our job is to look at the valleys of ashes — within ourselves and without — through the lens of the Cross and God’s Kingdom vision.

For this to happen will take a community to look with Kingdom eyes (“Your sons and daughters will prophecy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions” – Joel 2:28) —a community of God’s people, across the generations, dreaming the dreams of God for the Valleys of Ashes. We are all called to take our place as part of the community of God’s people who will rise up to rebuild and repair and restore. “And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.” (Isaiah 58:12)

We are a Cross-shaped community. At a very specific point in space and time, Jesus gave up everything to enter our community. “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8)

Jesus risked everything — even death upon the Cross — so that we could be restored in relationship with God, now and eternally. Through the Cross, the ashes of our broken lives were exchanged for the beauty of His righteousness.

By His Spirit, Jesus never left the neighborhood. Isaiah 58 is His call to us as a community to join Him there — in communion with Him and with each other — to transform the world through the inexhaustible and greater power of His love.

Check out this video link to see and hear this remarkable story of local restoration: https://vimeo.com/229788240.

The Rev. Drew Williams is senior pastor of Trinity Church in Greenwich.

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