For over a decade, I documented the crew at the Stoneyard at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I always stayed behind the camera, capturing the work done by the skilled apprentices, artisans and laborers who created extraordinary works in stone and started to build a tower.
As I began digitizing my slides and negatives 12 years ago, I realized I had scant few images of myself to show – a self-portrait, the back of my head while I was photographing on the tower and a single photo of me photographing a stone carver and his work.
Recently, while also editing and digitizing a few boxes of slides and prints from the Cathedral archives, I came across a treasure trove of images capturing me working on the tower and photographing daily events during the building phase of the 1980s and early 1990s. I found these images in folders organized by Barbara C. Timken, an architectural historian, who was the Stoneyard Institute coordinator and Director of Educational Programs from 1986 – 1988.
Perhaps this is a good time to reflect on my time documenting such a magical era at the Cathedral.
The Beginning
I first read about the Stoneyard Institute from a Daily News article, and I was attracted to the idea of the medieval traditions of stonecutting coming to life in the City. In the pre-email days, I wrote to Dean James Parks Morton who invited me to come by for a meeting. Sitting in his huge cluttered office, its every surface covered with artwork and papers, I was in awe. I explained that I wanted to make a record of this project and he essentially told me “it’s yours.”
It’s Yours
– James Parks Morton
At the time, I worked full time as a photographer for Gannett Newspapers, but a crazy schedule of days, nights and weekends allowed me to stop by the Stoneyard for an hour or two before going in for a night shift, or spend most of the weekday if I was working the weekend. It also helped that I lived on Cathedral Parkway, so I was only a few blocks away from the Stoneyard.
My responsibility on this project, as I saw it, was to record the work in the most objective way. Stay behind the camera and let the work unfold. In a very short time Jose Tapía, James Jamerson, Arlene “Poni” Baptiste and Tim Smith, among others, would totally forget I was there and I could capture true candid moments while they worked. I also learned more about them since I started coming by regularly with many friendships developing, and many remaining to this day. I remember lunch at Tom’s Restaurant with Cynie Linton, Halloween parties at The Deanery, summer barbeques featuring Sylvia’s fried chicken and crying at Ruben Gibson’s funeral.
Dedication of the South Tower
Most of the time, I could visit the Stoneyard, shoot a few rolls of film and move on. However, other times I had to come up with a plan to photograph a special event.
The first major occasion was the tower dedication on Sept. 29, 1982, when the cornerstone of St. Paul’s tower was set and blessed by Bishop Paul Moore. I had to assess the logistics of photographing from one of two vantage points – Amsterdam House that faced the Cathedral or from the Cathedral tower. Where would I get the best shots of Philippe Petit walking across Amsterdam Avenue on a high wire since I couldn’t be in two places at once…or could I?
I checked the roof of Amsterdam House and saw that Philippe’s wire was set and there would be a dramatic view of him walking with the Cathedral in the background. I also realized the more important images – the actual blessing of the cornerstone and capturing the expressions on Philippe’s face — could only be done from the tower side. Time was tight so I left a camera on a tripod with an external shutter on the roof of Amsterdam House and asked a photographer next to me if she would hit the button a few times when Philippe started his walk. A chance I had to take, I felt, as I raced across the street and to the top of the St. Paul’s tower before the ceremony began.
Clearly, I was at the right spot to capture a jubilant Philippe kneeling on the wire and raising his hand in a dramatic moment. From there I could easily turn around and record the setting and blessing of the first stone on the narrow space in front of the cornerstone. At one point, while Philippe was crossing Amsterdam Avenue, I must have blocked a photo Master Mason Stephen Boyle was trying to take. Instead of a nice pic of Philippe walking across on the wire, Stephen wound up with a photo of the back of my head with Philippe seemingly off in the distance. Stephen kindly gave me his photo as a souvenir, which I have added to my digital archive.
After the ceremony, I returned to Amsterdam House to retrieve my camera. Once the slide film was processed, I saw that the photographer had indeed pushed the shutter a few times and I had a spectacular image of Philippe walking toward the Cathedral, suspended over 100 feet above Amsterdam Avenue. I was equally surprised (and delighted) to get a call the next day from Newsweek magazine which published my photo. I also had a front-page photo and a few others in the Gannett newspaper, The Journal News.
The Bell Tower
Another scheduled event that required careful planning was the bell frame installation, which occurred over the weekend of September 3-4, 1988. I had scoped out a few nearby buildings where I could access the roofs to get different angles as the steel I-beams were hoisted from a street level crane to the top of the tower. I spent the better part of the weekend on the street, up on the tower and on nearby rooftops to record the moment.
Once again, Stephen Boyle was on the tower that weekend with his camera and he managed to grab a photo of me walking around the limestone blocks as the steelworkers bolted the I-beams into place. Another photo for my collection.
My battered Domke bag was crammed with the usual array of Nikon equipment but on occasion, I had to add some special tools to get the job done – ultra wide-angle lenses and cameras and perceptive control (PC) lenses.
Light and Shadow
I loved working with light and shadows to capture progress photos of the Cathedral façade as the tower began to rise. To keep the lines straight and undistorted I used a PC lens that enabled me to shift the axis of the lens to keep architectural lines straight and not tilting at awkward angles. The result was beautiful images as the setting sun cast moody shadows on the West front with the tower rising into a deep blue sky.
Photographing on the tower was a challenge mainly because there was so little room to back up, and I certainly did not want to take one step too many off the wooden planks surrounding the stonework. I sometimes needed the help of ultra-wide and full-frame fisheye lenses to get sufficient distance between the subjects – the stone setters — and me as they were setting the stones. This was especially true while I photographed the tower crew working on the string course. I literally had to crouch low on a wooden plank off the side of the tower to show the bizarre yet beautiful faces and elaborately carved foliage as the masons set the stones into place.
As I mentioned, until recently I had one photo of me photographing at the Stoneyard. It was a small Kodak print and I could not recall who gave it to me. While scanning a folder from Barbara C. Timken marked “People,” I found the original slide and a few others. Her image shows me photographing D’Ellis “Jeep” Kincannon’s St. Phoebe apex gablet finial, with Jeep also photographing his stone from a different angle.
Barbara also recorded images tracing the carving as it was delivered to the tower and then set into place. Along the way, Barbara turned her camera in my direction a few times, so now I had some new photographs of my working on the tower.
Barbara was on the scene with her camera another time, when I was setting up a group photo of the Stoneyard crew and the summer architectural program on the tower. I had to climb over the scaffolding and out onto the edge of the planks, to get the angle I needed. That memory came back in a jolt when I found another of Barbara’s many folders with images she had captured that day. Not only did she have photos of me holding onto the scaffold with one hand as I directed people to get closer, but the photo also showed the very short shorts I was wearing that day.
Work on the Tower Slowed
Gradually, things changed. Work slowed down on the tower as funding dried up and Dean Morton tried to keep things afloat with Cathedral Stoneworks. In addition, for me, a new job (Monday through Friday) and the birth of my son Evan left little time to photograph at the Stoneyard.
Within a few years, all work had stopped and the rusting hulk of the scaffold enveloped the stump of a tower. Many years later, the scaffold and upright bell frame beams came down — a clear indication there would be no more work on the tower in my lifetime. My dream of photographing the last pinnacle set in place would never happen.
My body of work – several hundred rolls of films and slides (in the pre-digital age) – languished on a bookshelf until I found myself out of work in 2013. The down time gave me the opportunity to put my collection in order and complete the job I had started decades earlier by putting everything in digital form. As a photojournalist, I knew the job was more than gathering a series of photographs together – I had to tell a complete story with each image. Clear captions with accurate details were my mantra, and I give special thanks to Stephen Boyle for his never-ending patience as I bombarded him with questions on technical terms, types of stone and crewmembers’ names. With his help, my collection comes close to 2,000 images.
Things are coming full circle since I took my first photos at the Stoneyard 45 years ago. With my images, I have contributed numerous stories to Divine Stone and I have done a number of presentations on the magnificent carvings on the tower. (I even hope to turn that project into a children’s version.) Perhaps a book in the future?
Recalling my first meeting with Dean Morton, when I explained I wanted to make a record of this project, I see that I am still working on this task. Only now, I am pushing it forward for future generations.
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