Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York
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The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, officially the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in the City and Diocese of New York, is the Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of New York.
Located at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue New York, N.Y. 10025 (between West 110th Street, which is also known as ''Cathedral Parkway'', and 113 Street) in Manhattan's Morningside Heights, the cathedral is claimed to be the largest cathedral and Anglican church and third largest Christian church in the world. The cathedral, designed in 1888 and begun in 1892, has, in its history, undergone radical stylistic changes and the interruption of the two World Wars. It remains unfinished, with construction and restoration a continuing process.
History
An unbroken piece of property of 11.5 acres, on which the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum had stood, was purchased for the cathedral in 1887. After an open competition a design by the New York firm of George Lewis Heins and John LaFarge in a Byzantine Romanesque style was accepted the next year. Construction on the cathedral was begun with the laying of the corner stone on December 27, 1892, St. John's Day. The foundations were completed at enormous expense, largely because bedrock was not struck until the excavation had reached 72 feet. The first services (in the crypt, under the crossing) were held in 1899.
The original Byzantine Romanesque design was changed to a French Gothic design after the large central dome made of Guastavino tile was completed in 1909, so that while the nave and apse are both rendered in the Gothic style, the crossing under the dome is still Romanesque. The premature death of George Heins in 1907 left the Trustees unsure of how to proceed with the surviving architect, John Lafarge alone. In 1911, the choir and the crossing were opened. At some point, the dome and crossing are intended to be taken down and a massive Gothic tower is to be erected.
The first stone of the nave was laid and the west front was undertaken in 1925. The first services in the nave were held the day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Subsequently construction on the cathedral was halted, because the then bishop felt that the church's funds would better be spent on works of charity, and because America's subsequent involvement with the Second World War greatly limited available manpower. The Very Rev. James Parks Morton, who became Dean of the Cathedral in 1972, encouraged a revival in the construction of the Cathedral, and in 1979 the Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, Jr., then Bishop, decided that construction should be continued, in part to preserve the crafts of stonemasonry by training neighborhood youths, thus providing them with a valuable skill. In 1979, Mayor Ed Koch quipped during the dedication ceremony, ''I am told that some of the great cathedrals took over five hundred years to build. But I would like to remind you that we are only in our first hundred years.''
One architect who worked for Cram and Ferguson as a young man, John Thomas Doran, eventually became a full partner, (Cram and Ferguson became know as Hoyle, Doran and Berry. The firm exists today known as HDB / Cram and Ferguson). The November 1979 edition of LIFE magazine featured St. John the Divine Cathedral. To quote the magazine: (p.102) One architect from Cram's firm survives. At 80, John Doran is among the last architects able to draw gothic plans the difficult style is not taught in schools. He is helping St. John's new generation of builders. ''Nothing I've done,'' Doran says, ''Has held my interest like the cathedral. Everything since then has just been making a living.''
Construction on the towers continued in fits and starts until the early 1990s, when a lack of funds forced its abandonment, the Cathedral having largely spent its endowment. Unused and largely rusted scaffolding had been covering the south tower until the summer of 2007, when workers began removing it. Apparently, some sections of the tower itself were removed in the process, as the tower appears shorter and gaps have appeared in its upper section. Under master stone carvers Simon Verity and Jean Claude Marchionni, work on the statuary of the central portal of the Cathedral's western façade was completed in 1997. The Cathedral has since seen no further construction, and the new generation of trained stonecarvers has gone on to other projects.
Description of the cathedral
Altar
The building as it appears today conforms primarily to a second design campaign from the prolific Gothic Revival architect Ralph Adams Cram of the Boston firm Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson. Without slavishly copying any one historical model, and without compromising its authentic stone on stone construction by using modern steel girders, Saint John the Divine is a refined exercise in the 13th century High Gothic style of northern France. The Cathedral is almost exactly two football fields in length (601 feet or 186 meters) and the nave ceiling reaches 124 feet (37.7 meters) high. It is the longest Gothic nave in the world, at 230 feet. Seven chapels radiating from the ambulatory behind the choir are each in a distinctive nationalistic style, some of them borrowing from outside the gothic vocabulary. Known as the ''Chapels of the Tongues'' (Ansgar, Boniface, Columba, Savior, Martin, Ambrose and James), their designs are meant to represent each of the seven most prominent ethnic groups to first immigrate to New York City upon the opening of Ellis Island in 1892 (the same year the Cathedral began construction).
In the center, just beyond the crossing, is the large, raised High Altar, behind which is a wrought iron enclosure containing the Gothic style tomb of the man who originally conceived and founded the cathedral, The Right Reverend Horatio Potter, D.D., LL.D., D.C.L., Bishop of New York. Later Episcopalian bishops of New York, and other notables of the church, are entombed in side chapels. Directly below this is a large hall in the basement, used regularly to feed the poor and homeless, and for meetings, and multiple crypts. On the grounds of the Cathedral, toward the south, are several buildings (including a Synod Hall and the Cathedral school), as well as a large bronze work of public art by the Cathedral's sculptor in residence, Greg Wyatt, known as the Peace Fountain, which has been both strongly praised and strongly criticized.
On the night of December 18, 2001, a fire swept through the unfinished north transept, destroying the gift shop and for a time threatening the sanctuary of the cathedral itself. It temporarily silenced the Aeolian Skinner pipe organ. Although the organ was not damaged, its pipe chambers had to be removed and laboriously cleaned, to prevent damage from the fire's accumulated soot. Valuable tapestries and other items in the cathedral were damaged by the smoke.
In 2003, the Cathedral was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, however, shortly thereafter the designation was unanimously overturned by the New York City Council, which favored landmark status for the cathedral's entire grounds, rather than just the building. However, no move to designate the entire grounds has formed. Thus, the cathedral is not officially a New York City landmark at this time.
In January 2005, the Cathedral began a massive restoration that will remain in progress until June 2008. A state of the art chemical based cleaning system is being utilized, primarily to remove smoke damage resulting from the 2001 fire. The Cathedral houses one of the nation's premiere textile conservation laboratories to conserve the Cathedral's textiles, including works designed by Raphael. The Laboratory also conserves tapestries, needlepoint, upholstery, costumes, and other textiles for its clients.
In early November 2006, vandals beheaded a statue of George Washington near the high altar of the Cathedral and left a dollar bill with George Washington cut out on what was left of the neck.
Activities at the cathedral
The cathedral is a major center for musical performances in New York. Paul Winter has given many concerts there.
Deans
William Mercer Grosvenor 1911 - 1916
Howard Chandler Robbins 1917 - 1929
Milo Hudson Gates 1930 - 1939
James Pernette DeWolfe 1940 - 1942
James Albert Pike 1952 - 1958
John Vernon Butler 1960 - 1966
James Parks Morton 1972 - 1997
Harry Houghton Pritchett Jr 1997 - 2001
James August Kowalski 2002 -
