bells

One of the most beautiful places I have visited to date.

This is, I believe, a photograph of the Saint Paulinus (“Royal”) bell-foundry in Heiligerlee, displaying the 42-bell carillon commissioned for Saint Martin's Church in New York.

“Since 1871 Heiligerlee has been the home of the famous Saint Paulinus bell-foundry of the Van Bergen family of bell-founders. They have constructed carillons since 1930 both nationally and internationally. This is why, in 1942, a bell tower with a carillon was built in the foundry’s façade. The foundry ceased to exist in 1980 but since 1987 the restored complex houses a bell-foundry museum where the history of bell casting is demonstrated.”
– Carillon2008

The foundry was commissioned by Saint Martin's Episcopal Church in New York City to build a carillon to celebrate the restoration of the church after a fire in 1939. The bells were installed in 1949. [See NY Times story below]

Queen Juliana came to see and hear the bells in 1952, during her state visit to New York:

“Holland's Queen Juliana Visits Harlem” by Vieilles Annonces

Saint Paulinus Bell Foundry – Then and Now:

“Klokkengieterij Museum (c. 2005)”



“Saint Paulinus Foundry (1949)”  by Ben Merk




The Threatened Bells of St. Martin's
(excerpted New York Times, June 7, 1998)

“At St. Martin's Episcopal Church on 230 Malcolm X Boulevard [sic, 230 Lenox Ave], at West 122d Street, the tintinnabulation of the bells, bells, bells is unusual, joyful – and threatened.

“Unlike bells that are played by pulling on a long rope, St. Martin's are arranged in an elaborate series of wires and levers known as a carillon. Played on a special keyboard, a carillon is one of music's grandest, rarest and most challenging percussive instruments, producing harmonies that, of course, are impossible on a single large bell. ...

“That there is a carillon in Harlem at all is quite a feat. Unlike Riverside Church's carillon, which at 74 bells is the world's largest, St. Martin's 42-bell carillon was not a gift of John D. Rockefeller Jr. After the 1939 electrical fire left only the shell of the Romanesque Revival building, the 3,500-member congregation struggled to rebuild.

“A parishioner, Arnold Rosey, originally from the West Indies, where church bells are common, gave $100 to the pastor, Mr. Johnson [sic, Reverend John H. Johnson], specifically for a fund to buy a bell. Word spread and parishioners – working-class men and women like laborers, hospital attendants and maids, most of them also from the West Indies – contributed $2,000. Mr. Johnson and others decided on a carillon from the renowned Royal Bell Casting Foundry, in Heiligerlee in the Netherlands.

“In two years, the congregation raised the then extraordinary sum of $45,000, and the bells were installed in 1949. For many in the congregation, however, the real climax arrived when Queen Juliana of the Netherlands came to see the bells in 1952, thronged by more than 7,000 Harlem well-wishers. ...”

Dus dit is niet in de VS, maar in Groningen...

good portrait!