(This is Part 2 of a two part story about the bells by Divine Stone co-author Robert F. Rodriguez)
Several decades (and two bishops) passed with no plans to resume construction at the Cathedral. Bishop Horace Donegan, like his predecessor Bishop Charles Gilbert, said that no further construction would take place during his episcopate.
The climate changed in 1972 with the investiture of Bishop Paul Moore, who brought in James Parks Morton, who studied architecture at Harvard, as the new Dean at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
Both the Bishop and Dean felt the time was right to resume construction following New York City’s tumultuous 1960s. The Dean moved forward with a plan to employ traditional medieval building methods and train neighborhood men and women from Harlem to raise the towers and, hopefully, install a grouping of bells.
John Taylor and Co. furnished a diagram for a circular layout of a ringing peal of 12 bells and a Bourdon bell in June 1977, two years before the first stone was cut by the new apprentices.
A December 15, 1978 letter, between Payne Studios, a New Jersey-based installer, and John Taylor and Co. expressed concern about how the 13-bell proposal would fit into the planned bell chamber. Payne Studios felt there would be inadequate space for 13 bell ringers and urged John Taylor and Co. to revise the plans. The letter ended on an upbeat note: “We are getting all excited here.”
The new plan came in less than two weeks and proposed a peal of eight bells and a tenor bell weighing 2.1 tons and measuring just over 5 feet in diameter.
The number and size of the bells seemed to change once again a few years later with still another plan for a Bourdon bell surrounded by the ringing peal.
An April 1980 letter from the general manager of John Taylor and Co. to Dean James Parks Morton describes a 7’7” diameter Bourdon bell surrounded by a ringing peal. The letter adds, “I feel that it is important that this decision be made at an early stage so that the design work for the tower can proceed without alteration.” Prophetic words as will be seen in later correspondence.
As of November 1980, “present-day” prices were furnished to the Cathedral. The “present-day” qualifier may be due to the fluctuating costs of metals for casting the bells. The ringing peal and Bourdon would cost $372,225.92 and the ringing peal only, $225,926.14.
A fundraising brochure prepared by the Cathedral Development office, probably from around 1980, listed $250,000 as the suggested donor contribution for a “Peal of Twelve Bells, plus the Thirteenth, or Bourdon, ‘Great William,’ in honor of William Thomas Manning, Tenth Bishop of New York.” It did not specify the size of the Bourdon bell.
The flow of letters between the Cathedral and the bell foundry seemed to halt as construction of the southwest tower proceeded in fits and starts during the early 1980s.
A December 1986 Cathedral Newsletter gave an overly ambitious 1994 projected completion date for both towers, at a point when the southwest tower was barely one-quarter completed.
“The entire St. Paul’s tower is expected now to soar 323 feet above Amsterdam Avenue by 1992, the centenary of the laying of the cornerstone of the Cathedral,” the article states.
Tower construction was at a crossroads in the mid-1980s and a decision had to be made whether any kind of bells would ever resonate in the tower.
This responsibility fell on the shoulders of John Walsh sometime in 1986.
An August 2021 Divine Stone article provides the background: “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. 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 items outstanding, including the fabrication and installation of the steel bell frame and setting the concrete ring beam that was to tie the masonry of the tower together directly below the base of the bell frame.
In April 1988, Walsh moved ahead with the pouring of a four-foot deep concrete ring beam to strengthen the southwest tower, support the potential weight of bells and serve as a base for the bell frame.
The cement may not have been dry on the ring beam when a John Taylor and Co. interoffice memo from April 6, 1988 revealed: “JOHN WALSH RANG.
1) THEY DO NOT have money to buy the ring of bells.
2) They do not have money to buy the carillon.
3) He has the configuration drawings of the carillon – could they put the frame in now for the largest 14 bells only?
4) Wants engineer’s drawings and quickly – wants to set in and close walls around the structure.”
The memo adds that John Walsh “did not appear at all optimistic about getting the money — as he has before – he sounded almost desperate when he was on about the framework.”
Yet, the bell frame was erected.
Master Mason and tower construction supervisor Stephen Boyle was on the tower in September 1988 when the bell frame was assembled. He speculates, “I think it was a ‘now or never’ call, hoping the money for the bells would materialize later. It would also have much been harder to build the rest of the frame once the stone tower walls had risen further.”
Construction continued on the tower for a few more seasons and the limestone rose to cover most of the steel frame, but work ended before the frame was completely walled in and a roof added above. Around 2007, after years of inactivity, the rusting scaffolding and the upright beams of the bell frame were removed.
Additional information provided by John Taylor and Co. confirms that the bell frame erected on the southwest tower was the company’s design for a carillon. They did not manufacture this frame—they believe their design drawings were sent to a U.S. firm that manufactured the frame locally to Taylor’s specifications.
John Taylor and Co. also stated that the plan for the two towers was for the change ringing peal to go in the southwest tower, then under construction, and the carillon to go in the northwest tower.
This turned out to be the reverse of what actually happened, as John Walsh may have felt his best option was to erect the bell frame for the carillon in the southwest tower.
While no bells were ever ordered, Cathedral docent Tom Fedorek recalls, “During my first years as a cathedral guide in the 80s, visitors would ask if there would ever be real bells. One of my fellow guides told me that the bells had already been manufactured and were sitting in a warehouse in the Netherlands pending completion of the tower.” Wishful thinking or an urban legend.
Anyone walking near the Cathedral these days will hear bells ringing, but the sound comes from a speaker mounted on the southwest tower. Douglass Hunt, the Cathedral organ curator, explained, “The Cathedral’s bells are a Schulmerich Carillon. It is a digital instrument — the bell sounds were sampled from cast bells and are digitally generated by the carillon’s electronics. Not a recording per se, but rather a digital tone generator system.
“We have always kept the instrument to playing clock functions (hourly rings), as well as calls to worship for Sunday and other major services. On a rare occasion, I’ve been asked to program a toll (for a solemn occasion) or a peal (for a joyous one),” he continued.
“It was once said to me that the installation of an electronic carillon had been done years ago as a way of getting the sound of bells into the neighborhood atmosphere, in preparation for the completion of the west facade and towers.”
Aside from bells proposed for the tower, Stephen Boyle points to blueprints that indicate a few unusual items. Plans included an elevator running on the exterior of the tower’s east side with a narrow entry to the tower base. A small tapered passageway inside the tower leads to a blank wall that would have been opened to accommodate an elevator. This lift would save the bell ringers and /or carilloneurs the steep climb up a spiral staircase to the floor of the tower and allow visitors to the belfry.
There are also four corbels in the tower carved in the likeness of several major supporters and benefactors, looking down from near the top of the chamber’s ceiling. A corbel is a bracket that projects from within a wall to support a weight, although these four corbels might have been purely decorative.
One such corbel honors The Rev. Dr. Robert Ray Parks, Rector of Trinity Church. Rev. Parks was a member of the Cathedral Board of Trustees and the Chairman of the Fabric Committee when tower construction was under way. Rev. Parks stood atop the tower in 1982 for the dedication ceremony and saw Philippe Petit cross Amsterdam Avenue on a high wire.
Today, the bell chamber sits as quiet as a catacomb; the only sounds piercing the stillness are the rumbling of buses and ambulances on Amsterdam Avenue below.
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Sources:
- Special thanks to John Taylor and Co. Archives and Tim Barnes at Trinity Chuch
- Riverside Church
- Andrew Dolkhart – Morningside Heights
- American Bell Festival
- Cathedral of St. John the Divine archives
- Cathedral Newsletter
- Schulmerich Carillons
- Cathedral Docent Thomas Fedorek
- Central Council of Church Bell Ringers
- New York Magazine, May 26, 1980