Feb

The central portion of Ben Long's fresco at St. Peter Catholic Church uptown clattered to the floor Wednesday. Long's painting of a benevolent Christ with outstretched arms fell in pieces large and small. The scenes to the left and right were severely damaged.

"It's hard for any of us to believe it or accept it, but there it is," said a parishioner standing in the back of the church Wednesday. He would not give his name.

For years the church has been surrounded by construction. The latest is The Green, the $75 million First Union (now Wachovia) retail-office-condo project, under construction since 1999.

And from the start, the bank coordinated its plans with the needs of St. Peter, the city's oldest Catholic church. The church will use The Green's underground parking garage and the basement of its office building.

The Rev. Joe Sobiersjski, the church's pastor, said Batson-Cook, the construction company, put seismographs in the church to record vibrations. He said none were reported and that no cracks had appeared in the fresco.

The plaster fell about 11:10 a.m. Wednesday, while visitors toured the church. It was then locked, and midday Mass was held in the basement.

"We started working today with the Catholic Diocese, and in conversation with the artist and others, to begin to determine what could have caused this to happen," said Wachovia spokesperson Mary Eshet.

The priest and Eshet said the heavy construction work ended months ago.

"There has been a lot of care taken around the church in ensuring its safety throughout this process," Eshet said. It's too early to say whether the bank is liable for replacing the fresco, she said.

A painstaking process

Working at times inch by inch, Long spent two years creating the fresco, using the ancient technique in which pigment is applied to a damp plaster wall. As the plaster dries, it fixes the pigment into a nearly indestructible surface.

The damage at St. Peter was to the plaster itself. Some fell from the supporting wall, which rises to a peak 35 feet behind the altar. In other places, the plaster, about 2 inches thick, buckled.

Long, who grew up in Statesville and gained a reputation for his frescoes in two small mountain churches, finished the St. Peter fresco in 1989 and has since painted four others in Charlotte -- including one in the dome of the uptown Transamerica building.

The artist, who learned the technique in Italy, worked with assistants on a wall about 1,500 square feet -- the size of a small house -- to paint three scenes -- "The Agony in the Garden" on the left, "The Pentecost" on the right and "The Resurrection" in the center.

The church paid Long $100,000 for the work and spent another $30,000 on materials.

Joann Keane, a spokeswoman for the diocese, could not say Wednesday if the work was insured, or its current value.

Long drove from his Asheville home to Charlotte late Wednesday and assessed the damage.

Knox Bridges, Long's business manager, said Long pointed out that frescoes in Europe survived bombing in World War II, even when the buildings didn't.

Bridges said Long felt it was too soon to talk about replacing the work. "I've lost a member of my family and I can't think of what the future holds until I get over the grief," he quoted Long as saying.

But Sobiersjski was hopeful about replacing a work that has brought crowds to his church and become beloved by its members.

"The fresco is such a part of the parish," he said. "As a parish, we would love to have it back."

Got, Alotta, Charlotte!

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