Category: Divine Stone

Lee Lawrie’s Christ in Majesty or sometimes the “Majestus”, is the Western Christian image of Christ seated on a throne as ruler of the world. The image develops from Early Christian Art as described in the Apocalypse of John.

The Full Size Model

The Ardolino extended stone carving family likely carved this sculpture. The general contractor employed them on the west front at this time

Lee Oskar Lawrie (1877 – 1963)

The work of sculptor Lee Lawrie is associated with some of America’s most noted buildings of the first half of the Twentieth Century. Lawrie’s style evolved through modern Gothic to Beaux-Arts and finally in to Moderne or Art Deco. He created the mighty Atlas at Rockefeller Center and sculpted the highly dramatic facade of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. His largest commission, the Nebraska State Capitol sculptures, remains one of his most creative. Lawrie taught sculpture at Yale and Harvard.

At the age of 14, Lee became a studio assistant to Chicago sculptor Henry H. Park. Shortly thereafter, he got a job at the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition. From there he worked for a number of world-class sculptors including Augustus Saint-Gaudens. In 1895 he approached Bertram Goodhue of Cram and Goodhue and with his demonstrated skills was hired.

Lawrie’s collaborations with Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Goodhue brought him to the forefront of architectural sculptors in the United States. After the breakup of the Cram, Goodhue firm he remained a favorite of Cram; however, Lawrie continued to work mostly with Goodhue.

Lawrie created a great deal of sacred art in all of Goodhue’s churches in NYC and beyond. Goodhue and Lawrie worked on more than a hundred buildings including St. Thomas church on 5th Avenue where Lawrie sculpted the famous reredos.

The Cathedral Commission

The Cathedral commission was much larger in scope than the creation of the Majestus sculpture. It involved modeling statuary for the main portal, the work that was eventually done by direct carver Simon Verity. Why the statues were never executed is still a bit of a mystery, but we talk about most of the facts of the matter next time.

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• We are Grateful to Wayne Kempton, Diocesan Archivist, for the information and the images of Lee Lawrie’s models.

John Angel’s statue of St. Paul was done in his traditional process. First, an armature is created from a small model, then a full size clay model is sculpted. From this clay model a plaster cast was made and brought to the site for the stone carver to copy. The carver of this particular work is unknown to us at this time. This statue is one of the last sculptural additions to the South Portal in this period.

In 1928, Angel had executed the large Nativity group in the tympanum. The installation of this trumeau statue occurred on November 24, 1953. It may have been the last of the Angel sculptures on the West Front of the Cathedral. Angel may have completed the modeling of St. Paul much earlier, in the 1930’s. All these works span 25 years and marked a commitment to the Cathedral from the Baptistry statues to the many sculptures on the West Front. The Statues at the Martyrs’ Portal, the trumeau of St. John at the main portal and this work on the South Portal are among the many works from John Angel. The Ardolino brothers and cousins carved many of these works.

The Preachers Portal

The “Preachers’ Portal” is the name for this portal in the 1928 guide to the Cathedral. In addition to Saint Paul, there is a plan for eight more statues: “On the left side, west to east: Saints Francis of Assisi, Bernard, Boniface and Chrysostom. On the right side, west to east: Saints Dominick, Gregory, Patrick and Athanasius.” We look forward to the eventual sculptural additions to the South Portal involving these eight statues.

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(There are many urban legends involving the Cathedral. The article above is an example. Curious about the arch and hoping to locate it, I turned to the Cathedral’s Senior Guide and Historian – Tom Fedorek. Here is the story, or should we say, the corrected story, about the unfinished arch – Roger)

Here is the arch in question as it appears today. It is one of the four broad arches that line each side of the Great Choir and bear the load of the chambers housing the organ pipes above (they are not “decorative”). This arch, the last one on the north side, is the only one with floral carving on its voussoirs, beginning on the right side but petering out as reaches the peak. Its left side is unadorned, as are all of the other Great Choir arches. The capitals are likewise unfinished.

What Might Have Happened

It is December 7, 1941. We imagine the stonecarver standing on a scaffold in the Great Choir. We see the concentration on his face as he carefully shapes the stone. A radio is playing softly in the background. Suddenly an announcer breaks in with the news of the attack. It is a moment he’ll never forget. Shaken, he quickly packs up and heads home to his family. The next day he’s not there. Perhaps he’s joined the thousands of men lining up to enlist. The carving on the arch is never finished. It remains to this day as a testament to a heart-stopping moment in American history.

The “Pearl Harbor Arch” is a compelling story. I have heard it recounted by innumerable sightseeing guides and a few of our own cathedral guides. When I took a television crew through the place some years ago, the first thing they wanted to shoot was the Pearl Harbor Arch. 

None of it is true. 

Some Important Facts

Let’s think about this. December 7, 1941 was a Sunday. Does it seem likely that the cathedral would have had a stonecarver working on a Sunday, hammering on stone and scattering dust and debris around the main worship space? Especially on this particular Sunday – the grand finale of the eight-day celebration of the consecration of the building’s full length that began on November 30?

More to the point — archival photographs dating back many years prior to 1941 show the arch looking exactly as it does today. This one is from 1929, but I have seen the unfinished carving in photos from 1913 in the cathedral archives. The only way the arch could be the “Pearl Harbor Arch” would be if the Second World War had preceded the First. 

Many mysteries remain. Whose idea was it to gussy up Heins & La Farge’s powerful, Richardsonian arches? Who executed the work? And why was it never finished?

When facts are lacking, fiction may fill the vaccuum. The Pearl Harbor Arch is just one of the urban legends that have attached themselves to the cathedral like barnacles to the bottom of a ship. 

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• Many thanks to Tom Fedorek, Cathedral Historian and Senior Guide for this blog

Above the bronze doors at the central Portal of Paradise and above and behind the trumeau of St. John is the Pilgrims’ Frieze. The design is by Canon Edward Nason West in 1964. The Laymen’s Club was financially instrumental in the commissioning of the frieze.

It is speculated that the firm of Rochette & Parzini executed the plaster cast and the carving. They had completed the Gable Cross, the Diocesan Coat of Arms and the Christ in Majesty. All of these just preceded the Pilgrims’ Frieze and all were embellishments to the center of the west front. Likewise, Rochette & Parzini’s main carver, Mario Tommasi, is thought to have done the carving.

The liturgical inspiration for Canon West’s design is found in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 7.

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands…

– Book of Revelation

All the 33 figures in the frieze are carrying a large branch of palm. All ages and ethnicities are present in a procession of pilgrimage. They represent the varied ethnic composition of the people who attend services at the Cathedral.

Canon West

Truly a Renaissance man, he studied architecture at Boston University before turning to theology. Ordained a deacon in 1934 and a priest in 1935, West came to the Cathedral in 1941 and became Canon Sacrist in 1943 and named Sub Dean of the Cathedral in 1966. He retired in 1981 as Canon Sacrist and Sub Dean but continued as Master of Ceremonies; he served as Master of Ceremonies for more than 40 years.

Not only was he a theologian, he was also an author, an internationally known iconographer, an expert in the design of church furnishings and an authority on liturgical art. A leading authority on liturgical celebrations, as Canon Sacrist, he was in charge of preparations for all services at St. John the Divine.

Among his many contributions, he designed the Compass Rose of the Anglican Communion, the Diocesan seal as well as the Pilgrims’ Frieze.

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• Our thanks to the Cathedral Archives and Wayne Kempton for the contributions to this story
• The New York Times, Edward West, Retired Canon and Author, 80, Jan 5, 1990, section B, page 4
• Strangers and Pilgrims, A centennial History of the Laymen’s Club of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Francis B. Sypher 2012, pages 73-74

After Bishop Manning (1921-1946) opened the completed nave and the renovated choir, the start of the U.S. involvement in WWII effectively ended construction. So many workers enlisted in the military. This left the west front towers and the transepts uncompleted. Additionally, there remained unfinished much of the carving embellishments on the west front of the Cathedral.

Manning’s successor, Bishop Charles K. Gilbert (1947-1950) was in an environment where people’s attention moved from the war to the domestic scene. From the Laymen’s Club history we have this… “At the end of the Second World War, thousands of young veterans came home to settle down and bring up families, most of them moved to the suburbs. For the Episcopal Diocese of New York the prevailing changes meant growing suburban congregations and new suburban parishes, as well as shrinking city congregations, together with closing and consolidating city parishes.

The Cathedral’s Changing Neighborhood

“By the 1950s, the urban church found itself involved in mission-type work at every level. At the same time, the funding formerly from wealthy urban parishioners was now centered in the suburbs.” In 1950 upon the death of Bishop Gilbert, Bishop Horace W. B. Donegan (1950-1972) became the head of the diocese. He stated that the Cathedral would…

… not be built until the stresses of our city be ceased.

– Bishop Donegan

Nevertheless, during the Donegan years, certain additions were made. One of these was a four-and-a-half ton granite cross at the apex of the front gable over the central portal of the west front.

The cross is 14 feet tall and it was cut from an eight ton block of granite. It was cut and carved by the New York firm of Rochette and Parzini. They were a sculpting, sculptural enlargement, stone carving and modeling firm founded in 1904.

The Diocesan Coat of Arms

At the time the cross was made, Rochette and Parzini was engaged to carve the Diocesan Coat of Arms. The Indiana limestone slab was placed on the Cathedral in 1924. Mario Tommasi, one of the few stone workers remaining in the city in the 1960s, is shown carving the Arms of the See of New York. Eighty feet above Amsterdam Avenue, the carving took two months. It is between the shields of the city of New York and the Cathedral Church.

Mr. Tommasi, a stocky 59 year old at the time of the carving, is a native of Carrara in northern Italy. Stone carving has been a Tommasi family trade. He began his work in his father’s shop at 15 in the Tuscan town famed for the quality of its marble. He speaks of marble with reverence. When Mr. Tommasi came to this country in 1926 he was one of six stone carvers, working for the Piccirilli Brothers, who worked on the marble statue of Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

On the scaffold with him is a full size plaster cast, eight feet tall by six feet wide. The cast was made from a clay model at Rochette & Parzini from a drawing provided by Canon Edward Nason West.

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• Strangers & Pilgrim’s, A Centennial History of the Laymen’s Club, Francis J. Sypher, Jr.
• The New York Times, November 27, 1964, Stone Carver’s Perch is 80 feet Aloft at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine,Page 30
• The New York Times, Donegan Dedicates Granite Cross, August 26, 1964 Page 41