Category: Divine Stone

As the foundations of the cathedral started to come up, the outline of the Crypt began to take shape. The arches shown here are below grade and form spaces in the Crypt. The Crypt follows the Heins & Lafarge plan above it. Basically, it encompassed the space of the Choir, Chancel, Sanctuary, Apse and the seven Apsidal Chapels. In later years, artists-in-residence used studio spaces in the Crypt. The spaces below the Chapels carried their names. Gregg Wyatt, who created the Peace Fountain used one as his studio for years. Almost all of the space is now storage.

The Crypts’ vaulted ceiling was the Guastavino Company’s first job at the Cathedral. They installed a fireproof ceiling of Akoustilith tile of Guastavino’s design. The tile had significant absorptive qualities. Therefore the congregation could hear the readers and preachers. The construction of the “temporary” dome over the crossing will showcase more significant work by Guastavino.

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Finally, on Sunday, January 8, 1899, the Crypt, accommodating a congregation of 500 persons, opened for services. Above it, the eight massive columns were still at the quarry. The keystone of the Great Eastern Arch was still ten years away. These services continued without interruption for the next 12 years. On the morning of April 19, 1911 the last service was held, with the opening of the Choir and the Crossing.

The Tiffany Chapel

The Tiffany Company designed and built an amazing chapel for the 1893 Worlds Fair in Chicago. As a result, it won numerous medals and was one of the most visited at the event. Mrs. Celia Hermoine Wallace purchased the chapel and gifted it to the Cathedral in memory of her son. It consisted of an altar, reredos, font, lecturn and five stained glass windows. Above all, the altar contained 150,000 squares of glass set in mosaic. The top of the altar and the retable were Carrara marble. The medallions in front were mother of pearl. The central shield contained settings of sapphires, topazes and pieces of pearl. The reredos was of iridescent glass mosaic.

• Photo – Museum of the City of New York
• Photos – Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. Manhattan: Amsterdam Avenue – Cathedral Parkway

The Building Committee of the Cathedral announced its intention not only to complete the choir structure, but also to continue to the westward and construct the Crossing. The providing of necessary funds would accomplish the three new arches and cover for the crossing.

The pillars being in place, the next step will be the erection of three more arches. They will be precisely the same as the great eastern arch already erected. These four arches complete the square of the crossing. The Belmont Chapel is about complete and the Chapel of St. Columba has started. The Committee needs an additional $500,000 beyond funds on hand and other commitments. Regarding the Crossing area, The Building Committee of the Board of Trustees said the following:

“It is estimated that $200,000 would complete the choir. If finished it would easily accommodate a comparatively small number of worshippers. It is in the judgement of the committee, highly desirable that, in addition to the great stone arch now standing, there should be three similar ones needed to enclose the ‘crossing.’ Were the ground thus bounded to be temporarily roofed over and walled in, we should have an interior capable of accommodating from four to five thousand worshippers.”

– The Building Committee

Completing the Arches

All of the piers and columns for the next three arches came up from bedrock in an orderly way. Granite blocks for these structures kept arriving at the site. The western arch was the first to complete.

The North Arch was the next to complete

Voussoirs on the arches and buttresses

Keep in mind, when Heins & La Farge designed the arches, they were to support a massive lantern and tower. The lantern would fill the crossing with light from large windows. With that in mind, the arches would need to be quite massive. Arch construction depends essentially on a wedge. If a series of wedge-shaped blocks, ones in which the upper edge is wider than the lower edge, are set flank to flank, the result is an arch. Voussoir is the term for these blocks on both the arches and the buttresses.

Notice the staggered joints on the voussoirs that are side by side. A row of two voussoirs is flanked on each side by three voussoirs. This design further strengthens the arch.

Additionally there are three sets of these voussoirs front to back to further create these massive arches. Numbering the stone determines its exact location. Each voussoir must be precisely cut so that it presses firmly against the surface of neighboring blocks and conducts loads uniformly. The pressure downward on an arch has the effect of forcing the voussoirs together instead of apart. These stresses also tend to squeeze the blocks outward radially. Loads divert these outward forces downward to exert a diagonal force called thrust. These forces will cause the arch to collapse if it is not properly buttressed. Therefore the vertical supports upon which an arch rests must be massive enough to buttress the thrust and conduct it into the foundation.

Voussoir

The word is a stonemasonry term borrowed in Middle English from French verbs connoting a “turn”. Each wedge-shaped voussoir turns aside the thrust on to the supports. Voussoir arches distribute weight efficiently, and take maximum advantage of the compressive strength of stone.

• Photo Credits – All photos from the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of the United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. Manhattan: Amsterdam Avenue – Cathedral Parkway

Maybe you don’t read blueprints very well. Maybe two dimensional perspective sketches aren’t quite good enough. Well how about a very large scale model of the Cathedral that you can walk inside? Oh yes, now you see it. That is what Heins and La Farge created so that there was no mistaking what their design would look like.

From the December 1900 issue of Carpentry and Building Journal, comes this article. The finished model was displayed in the Leake & Watts building lobby on the Grounds.

“We understand that arrangements have been made for a public exhibition this winter of a complete model of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, now in progress of erection on Cathedral Heights, New York City. The model will be of plaster supported on wood and iron frame work, with sheets of matting for the purpose of keeping the walls firm. The model will be about 50 feet by 25 feet in plan and 35 feet high. It is said that there will be room for 100 or more people to walk inside, and that the architects, Heins and LaFarge, have worked upon this model for nearly two years. The model will be exhibited on the site of the cathedral, and probably small fee will be charged.”

This view is of the interior of the model. It is looking towards the Altar past the Choir area from the future Crossing. The work is highly detailed inside and out.

• Carpentry and Building Journal, December 1900
• All Photos – Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. 1900. Manhattan: Amsterdam Avenue – Cathedral Parkway

For reference, the Belmont Chapel, later named the Chapel of St. Saviour, began construction at the eastern end of the Cathedral around 1901 (left side of photo). 1899 saw the completion of the great eastern arch (right side of photo). The massive chancel columns were in place at the end of 1904 (center of photo). The picture above shows the choir walls beginning to go up. Cut stone production was in full swing at this time in the first stone shed.

The massive columns defining the Chancel had to be up before the construction of the walls could begin. Once in place, at end of 1904 the walls of the Choir began to go up. The substructure of the walls was granite with the interior facing specified as Frontenac Limestone.

Beginning in 1901, the cutters and carvers created the stone that would decorate the interior of the choir, chancel, including the capitals for those massive columns and for work to continue to finish the first apsidal chapel, the Belmont Chapel. We don’t know the names of these cutters and carvers, nor the masons who set the stones. Their work and the beauty and craftsmanship is there for all to see.

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The Sculptors Moved In

Slowly the carvers and sculptors took over the stone shed. They would create the statuary inside and outside the Cathedral. The photo below shows the models for the statues of the apostles. The final placement, high up on the outside walls of the choir, would show off these statues to the world.

Sculptors also carved the reredos for the altar in the stone shed.

• All Photos – Irma and Paul Milstein Division of the United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library
• Minnesota Historical Society