The de facto decriminalization of marijuana has stirred a hornet’s nest of legal and HR issues for employers throughout Connecticut. Many of these concern employee performance and safety issues as well as employer liability for impaired workers on the job.
But there are still old-fashioned ways of getting high at work.
Workers in downtown New Haven office buildings have over the past two weeks been transfixed by the spectacle of high-wire workers erecting scaffolding surrounding the steeple of historic Center Church on the Green.
According to Center Church secretary Linda Consiglio, the workers, employed by F.J. Dahill Co. of East Haven, are engaged in a year-long project to repaint the approximately 150-foot steeple as well as to repair the weather vane atop the spire that was struck by lightning several years ago.
Interestingly, the 380-year-old church is more notable for what lies beneath it than what is above. For much of the Colonial era this part of the Green served as New Haven’s principal burying ground, with as many as 4,000 to 5,000 bodies interred there. When the present-day Center Church (its fourth meeting house, designed by Ithiel Town and completed in 1814) was being constructed in the middle of the common burying ground, rather than disturbing the remains or moving the headstones, the church building was simply erected on top of them.
The fire down below: Rather than disturb the existing burial plots and headstones on the Green, the fourth Center Church meeting house (constructed 1812-14) enveloped them to create the present-day crypt. Photo courtesy Center Church on the Green.
Public tours of the Center Church crypt are offered Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. from April through October (Call 203-787-0121 or visit centerchurchonthegreen.org). To visit the steeple, however, angel wings may come in handy.
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