MIDTOWN — The clickity-clack of the momentum-gaining subway trains is one of the soundtracks of New York City.
A raucous symphony builds with screeching wheels, chatter from exiting passengers, and the recorded but iconic voice of Charlie Pellett telling the onboarding riders to “Stand clear of the closing doors, please.”
But during each Tuesday evening commute in Grand Central Terminal, in front of the turnstiles below the entrance at 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, there is a chorus of voices in prayerful petition to the mother of Christ: “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee …”
This “Grand Central Rosary Group” — also called the “Subway Rosary” — has brought prayer to this same spot each Tuesday for more than four decades.
The format is simple — show up and pray the rosary.
“It’s important that people see that we are praying,” said Rose Coralde of Manhattan, a newcomer to the group. “I mean, the world is broken now.”
Virginia Hill, who has been coming for about six years, agreed.
“I really think it’s a way of telling people that there are people of faith in this city,” said Hill, a Brooklyn native who now lives in Manhattan. “Sometimes people think that there isn’t any, but it’s not true.”
In Brooklyn, Hill belonged to Holy Name of Jesus Church in Windsor Terrace. Other Brooklynites in the group are Richard Harris from St. Francis Assisi-St. Blaise Parish in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, and Ray Reyes, who belongs to St. Catherine of Genoa Parish in East Flatbush.
Also from the Diocese of Brooklyn is German Calderon of Immaculate Conception Parish in Astoria.
Harris said the group began with Legion of Mary members from St. Agnes Parish on 43rd Street, a block away from Grand Central Terminal. Its presence grew through the influence of its chaplain, Father William Shelley, a retired parochial vicar at the parish, who died in 2012.
“He was great,” Harris said of Father Shelley. “He came down here and he prayed with us every week. It was great having a priest with us.”
Reyes said he connected with the group in 2007 while working as a retail manager a short distance from Grand Central Terminal.
“One Tuesday I was going home and I walked past a group of these people praying the rosary,” he said. “I thought, ‘Let me go and say a decade with them.’ ” Reyes has been a regular ever since.
“When Father Shelley was getting ready to leave this world, he said, ‘Richard and Ray, I want you all to continue this,’ ” Reyes said.
Luis Menchaca of Manhattan, a retired seaman who has been attending since 1989, keeps coming despite the arthritis that has throttled his mobility. But Menchaca worries more about unborn babies than his own health.
“Oh, I’m struggling with the way this crazy world is now,” he said. “You know, there’s an abortion mill near here. They’ve been killing babies since 2005 over there. And I’m praying for my brother because he doesn’t go to church and I want him to get to heaven, too.”
Coralde and Hill said they became regular participants through their memberships in the Legion of Mary. Coralde attends the Church of the Epiphany, while Hill is a pastoral associate at the Church of Our Savior, both in Manhattan.
“One of my assignments was to come say the Subway Rosary,” Hill said of her early days with the Legion of Mary at St. Agnes. “After I started, it just seemed very inspirational. Sometimes, people coming out of the subway join us.”
The impromptu prayerful passengers have ranged from disheveled people who seemed homeless to well-dressed briefcase-toting professionals, Hill said.
“I’m surprised who actually stops,” Hill said. “One time, one of the police officers asked, ‘Would you pray for my father? He’s in the hospital.’ And she stayed and said a decade with us. So, it really is evangelization as well as saying the rosary.”
The rosary reciters said they don’t expect to see commuters join in each session. During their gathering on Jan. 9 waves of “straphangers” hurried past, eager to get home on a blustery, rain-swept evening. No one stopped.
Still, Reyes said “it’s all worth it” even if the group gets just one “turnaround” that leads a person back to God.
“We pray the rosary for the conversion of sinners, for the relief of souls in purgatory, for the sick, and for the people who take care of the sick,” Harris said. “But when you pray in spirit and in truth God answers your prayer.
“You may not see it with your naked eyes, but the results are going to be there.”
