In the beginning, the bishop’s altar was covered with a pile of discarded sofa cushions, shoeboxes, plastic decorative flowers, lighting fixtures and other bagged trash. Squatters were sleeping in the choir loft and the wood that comprised the white, ornate archways was stripped and chewed away, resembling the outer layer of a diseased oak tree. In the basement, an ankle-high river of brown sludge expanded with each rainfall and snowstorm that seeped into the building through the holes in the collapsed roof.
