A banker is a bench of timber or stone on which stone is worked. A banker mason carves or cuts the stone using drawings and templates into finished products for installation into buildings. The term “banker”, meaning bench, is Germanic but came into English via Late Latin bancus via Norman French baunk. This means bench, but because the bench is where money handlers sat in the market, bank also came to mean the house of financial transactions in French, Spanish (banco) and Italian. The old bankers above live on repurposed in a new setting.
The bankers above are stone, in this case, a crude work bench for dressing granite for paving setts. It was cheaper to finish the stone on the moor and then cart away the finished product to its destination. Apparently human labor was cheaper than the cost of horse transporting the raw material to a finishing shed.
The Cathedral Stone Cutters
Several of these bankers are continuing to serve stone carvers today, 2022. They are used for the Pellittieri Stone Carving Academy, a 501(c)(3) organization They are in the Bronx studio of Chris Pellittieri. When Chris Pellettieri attended the Cathedral School in the late 1970’s, the Cathedral’s then Dean, Reverend James Morton, had begun a campaign to resume construction on the Cathedral building. This renewal of building activity – along with a childhood spent in and around the Cathedral – had kindled a longing in Chris to become a Cathedral builder.
Chris Pellettieri – Apprentice to Stone Carver
After graduating Stuyvesant High School and NYU he returned to the Cathedral and became an apprentice stone carver. After the stone yard closed in 1994, Chris stayed on as a Cathedral Artist in Residence. Chris worked in the shed that had been vacated by the stone program and naturally used the bankers since they were there. When he had to leave, he took one with him and stored two others in the Crypt. These three and three he recently built are used for the Academy’s programs.
The Stone Carving Academy
Chris is conducting a two week long workshop for High School students in collaboration between the NYCDoE and his organization. He teaches them to carve a monogram all using the same size piece of limestone. The first day they learn to flatten the stone surface.
After the monograms, the students were taught to carve a bas-relief portrait.
