EQUIPMENT and FACILITIES
Exterior Signage / Interior Display Lighting
This is just the standard fair of heritage sites and museums, which St. Michael’s has been without for over a century. We have uncovered a newspaper article from 1893 decrying the fact that one of the most historical sites in Trenton has nothing to let you know how important it is. A number of grants are being pursued to make up this deficit quickly, but they require ‘matching’ funds.
Document Display Cabinetry (4) and Reader Display Pedestals (2)
Several state-funded historical grants were applied for and rejected for our historical document displays because we are a place of worship. The creation of the document room will require private funding.
Brearley Audio-visual space
The Parish House vesibule, looking out over David Brearley’s grave is being converted, for the short-term, into a small educational space. The high loft ceiling will be fitted with a high-definition screen for a traditional audio-visual presentation of the David Brearley story.
Interactive Display Columns (8)
Highly-interactive ‘information walls’ capable of split screens with independent controls are at the heart of designing the ‘educational games’ that can walk the visitor through vast connected territories of knowledge – in our case, of color, harmony, history and thought. The development costs of ‘game’ software to introduce the history, chemistry, and craft of stained glass, or the vast world of music and mechanics as seen, and felt, through an organ, will be shared resources for church-based educational hubs around the country. It is the cost of the these high-tech panels that must be funded independently.
Organ Loft Conversion to Display Space
Wherever there is an old working pipe organ, there is the opportunity for a hands-on introduction to children of the vast world of engineering, as well as the chance to become enamored of the sounds of classic composers (as well as those from classic film scores). In St. Michael’s case, the great wooden pipes in the loft were ready for decommissioning in 1998. But even a partial bank of pipes is enough –if you are standing inside them– to fill anyone’s body with the amazing feeling of harmonies vibrating through your bones. This will be an experience, connected with the educational game-panel, that will be a memory every child will take with them for years. The hope is to bring enough pipes to life so that every 15 minutes there will be a short toccata or familiar hymn to take that memory home with you.