John Walsh, Master of the Works came to the stoneyard during a rocky period. Master Builder Jim Bambridge had gone back to England. Master Masons Alan Bird and Stephen Boyle had also left. Money was tight and morale was at an all time low.
As a younger man, he worked on the the Verrazzanno Narrows Bridge. He worked for the architect of the Chrysler Building. He was involved with many of the iconic skyscrapers that make up the Manhattan skyline. If you shared a taxi with John from the Cathedral to Midtown you would hear stories of those great buildings. Just before the Cathedral work, John was the project manager for construction of the “new” c1984 granite clad Equitable skyscraper building on 7th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. John was recruited for the Cathedral by Ben Holloway. He was the CEO of Equitable’s Investment Corporation and a substantial player in real estate.
Ben Holloway
Benjamin Duke Holloway was a descendant of the founding family of Duke University. He spent 40 years with the Equitable Life Assurance Society, later AXA Equitable. Due to his vision and leadership, Equitable’s portfolio of real estate investments, both as owner and lender, expanded greatly and contributed to the growth and resurgence of many of the country’s cities. Ben was chosen by Dean Morton to head a fundraising campaign of 80 million dollars to complete the Cathedral and endow it for perpetuity.
” The Church should be a monument to New York”
-Ben Holloway
Throughout his career, Holloway felt in addition to responsibilities for wise financial management, large corporations also had obligations to support constructive improvement in their communities.
John Walsh settles things down and gets things moving.
John Walsh’s main role to begin with was to stabilize the program, get a handle on finances and chart a way forward. Much of the design work was complete but there were several major outstanding items to be addressed. These included the full size setting out of the “E” through “FP” zones. Additionally, there was the fabrication and installation of the steel Bell Frame and the concrete ring beam that was to tie the masonry of the tower together directly below the base of the Bell Frame. His specialty was steel but with immense knowledge of most construction materials and processes.
John T. Walsh, PE, was extremely well connected and highly thought of in the construction industry and he used his contacts accordingly. His impact on the project and personnel was huge and it is he who is largely responsible for the tower reaching the height it did. First impressions of John were that he was a seasoned , tough, no bull kind of boss. He was a strict take-no-prisoners-type leader. Before he came along, the cathedral went to great lengths to bring in people to “counsel” the troubled stone yard personnel – which was a disaster. John Walsh dismissed all of this and cracked the whip. He brought back Alan Bird and Stephen Boyle. Along with “Jeep” Kincannon, they were his lieutenants. Nick Fairplay had remained Head Carver during this period. He had a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” approach. The torpedoes were invariably budget issues.
Efficiency Leads to More Progress
John was anxious to get as much stone up in place as possible during the construction seasons. He did all he could to facilitate this including authorizing plenty of overtime. This resulted in much of the “B” zone being set in one construction season. The “B” zone was some of the most challenging building work on the tower. The fixing of the stone was being done without a tower crane, and to keep costs down, only a small number of chain hoists had been purchased. Listening to Steve Boyle, John allowed the purchase of multiple manual chain hoists, trollies, an electrical chain hoist and additional monorails. This increased efficiency considerably without excessive expense and helped compensate for not having a crane.
Beyond the Stoneyard – Experience Grows for Apprentices
In order to grow experiences and prestige for the stoneyard personnel he took them to Albany to meet with Governor Mario Cuomo. He took them to the Indiana Quarries and on a grand tour of the National Cathedral in Washington to meet the stone carvers and cutters there.
In addition to being the President of the Stoneyard Institute and Master of the Works, John taught Gothic Architecture at Cooper Union. Across the street, Columbia University had one of the only masonry preservation schools in the country. He set it up so the masons from the Cathedral could go over there and learn lab work. The Columbia students would come to the Cathedral and learn stone work. Through the Columbia connection he set up an exchange program with Didier Repellin and Compagnons. This program would bring over French stone workers to the Cathedral and send stoneyard apprentices to Lyon.
With Barbara Timken, John set up the Architectural Summer Program. The goal was to encourage and promote the use of stone as a building material for modern times.
Restoration Department Founded
Michael Drummond Davidson is a Scottish trained stone mason. He came to New York and worked on many buildings and monuments. He said that if there was a gothic cathedral being built, that is where he wanted to be. In 1985 he approached John Walsh with the idea of helping the 500 churches in the Diocese that were all brick and/or stone. John approved the idea and thus was founded the Restoration Department at the Cathedral. Michael’s department would offer surveys of these churches in regard to structural repairs and maintenance. They would also write up specifications for the work and submit their own bid. When a church was able to hire them, Michael would use some of the apprentices from the stone yard on the work, thus giving them meaningful restoration experience.
John Walsh: Master of the Works, Known for his Generosity and Kindness
Most of John’s projects came to an end and he moved on after the dedication and occupation of the building. This was not to be the case with the Cathedral. He had joined a special and very different community. He realized that he was at the helm of a very unique project. The project involved a remarkable group of mostly young people. He realized that he was in a position where he could help people and he did, often at his own expense.
John never spoke of his many acts of generosity and kindness. One of them involved lead carver Ruben Gibson. Dean Morton, however, quietly let it be known that when Ruben became too ill to work, John Walsh saw to it -with his own money- that he was well taken care of in the hospital.
Even after everyone had moved on from the stoneyard, they could count on John for advice, guidance and a lead on a job.
- A special thanks to those who knew John Walsh and contributed generously to this story – Stephen Boyle, Joseph Kincannon, Michael Davidson, Robert F. Rodriguez, and Jose Tapia
- New York Times, July 1, 1984 – Developer: Benjamin Duke Holloway; Equitable’s Player in the Real Estate Sweepstakes