The death of George Heins in 1907 effectively ended the contract of Heins and LaFarge with the Cathedral. Grant LaFarge continued supervision of the then parts of the Cathedral under construction. This ended with the completion of the crossing dome and the consecration of 1911. Ralph Adams Cram was appointed the consulting architect.
Bishop Henry Colman Potter was the force behind the selection of the initial design. He was attracted to the Byzantine/Romanesque/Gothic design, in part because it suggested internationalism and ecumenism. The foundation of that design, the enormous crossing, also appealed. It would be the Cathedral’s primary space, where large numbers would gather in a single body to see and hear.
From the very beginning, some members of the Cathedral corporation had favored a more purely Gothic style. After Bishop Potter’s death, criticism of the design had become more outspoken. Additionally, in the early 1900’s the style of the design’s popularity wasn’t what it was in the 1890’s.
Ralph Adams Cram was the county’s foremost expert on Neo-Gothic architecture. The Firm of Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson was engaged in multiple church and collegiate projects at the time.
Transforming to Gothic
The main issue that Cram inherited was the proportions of the existing structure. The enormous crossing, the central element of Heins and LaFarge’s design, was 90 feet by 90 feet. When Cram told partner Bertram Goodhue that they might be getting involved in the Cathedral,
I wondered what in the world we could do if we were forced to adhere to the present foundations
– Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue
Using the crossing width as the determining element for the width of the nave and determining a length for the nave in order to have a proportional Gothic relationship to the existing structure, Cram proceeded to solve the problem. Cram writes: “The original building had been laid out on a system of squares, not with the oblong areas of a normal Gothic church, and naturally, since it was more or less Romanesque. This was fortunate since, in order to do no violence to what existed, this setting-out had to be continued and this implied sexpartite vaulting.”
Sexpartite Vaulting – a rib vault divided into six bays by two diagonal ribs (c) and three transverse ribs (a). All the ribs are semi-circular.
Cram lengthened the church to 601 feet. Instead of building a traditional three aisle church consisting of a nave and two side aisles, he designed 146-foot-wide, five-aisle church.
Sexpartite Vaulting using primary and intermediate piers and internal buttresses -Image Cathedral of St. John the Divine
The Problem Meets an Elegant Solution
Cram introduced smaller intermediate piers in the primary arcade of the nave. The piers of the nave alternate between 16 feet and 6 feet in diameter. Each of the slender piers is composed of 53 course of solid granite, and each course weighs 4 tons. The large pillars have a granite base and a granite interior shaft faced with limestone. He resolved the nave into a system of four great squares or double bays, rather than eight rectangular bays. He lifted the intermediate piers as well as the primary piers to an enormous height (nearly 100 feet) and then pushed back the clerestory to a secondary line of piers. The aisles in between were then lifted to the full height of the nave vault. All this achieved an unprecedented amplitude (double that of any medieval cathedral) as well as a dramatic height and a remarkable play of light and shadow.
Interior of Nave – Image Wurts Bros. 1931 Museum of the City of New York
Here then was a chance completely to differentiate this particular cathedral from all others of the Gothic mode, so not only was the interior worked out on a system of columns alternating with massive piers, but the buttresses were alternately single and double.
– Ralph Adams Cram
Alternating Single and Double Buttresses lined up with the Primary Piers and Alternating Columns. Image – Cathedral of St. John the Divine
Cram continues…”Aisles had always been low, so that the clerestory came over the main arcade, with the result that great churches always seemed narrow and closely confined between crowding walls….here in New York the clerestory was pushed out to the line of the aisle walls, so giving a width of 100 feet between the containing walls, while the aisles themselves were raised in height to that of the nave, a greater elevation than occurs elsewhere in any Gothic Cathedral.”
French Gothic Influence
“Classical scale and detail of French Gothic became the inspirational influence and so, I suppose, the cathedral nave and west front are more French than anything else, though I still think it would be hard to find any instance of direct copying.”
Cram solved the design problems in quick order. However, construction waited for the funds to arrive.
Ralph Adams Cram – Supporter of Arts and Crafts
Cram, throughout his career, recognized the critical nature of craftspeople to carry out the final product. He sought out these special people in all areas, stained glass artists, wood carvers, sculptors and stone carvers.
Architecture by itself and without the cooperation of the other arts is almost helpless. It is true that architecture is the coordinating art, but the architect must be able to count on artists of every type to work with him in creating the finished product.
– Ralph Adams Cram
Ralph Adams Cram was a founding member of the society
After the Nave
Finally in 1938, sufficient funds became available to proceed with the work of modifying the interior of the choir. With the interior of the nave completed, a temporary altar was moved into it and a temporary wall put up. The exterior of the Heins & LaFarge designed structure needed no modification. There were enough Gothic elements to flow into the new nave exterior. The ornate interior of that structure, however, characterized by byzantine domes and romanesque arches made for an uncomfortable transition to the majestic Gothic nave.
At the east end of the apse was a semi dome of red Guastavino structural tile that was to display a mosaic of Christ. Yellow-green Guastavino tile groined vaults surmounted the choir stalls. Cram’s renovation included replacing the semi-dome with a seven cell Gothic vault framing seven clerestory windows. Three quadripartite Gothic vaults replaced the glazed tile vaults.
The Choir modifications took three years. These changes created design elements that became sympathetic with the nave.
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Have I A “Philosophy of Design”, Ralph Adams Cram, Pencil Points (magazine), Volume XIII, November 1932
Strangers and Pilgrims: A Centennial History of the Laymen’s Club of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Sypher, F.J.
Ralph Adams Cram, American Medievalist, Douglas Shand-Tucci
The Chapels of the Tongues – The Living Cathedral, Howard E. Quirk
We covered the first two chapels built and consecrated in a previous blog, the Chapel of St. Saviour and the Chapel of St. Columba. Private subscriptions built all but one of the seven Chapels of the Tongues. Public subscriptions created the funds for construction of the Chapel of St. Ansgar. The languages of the first immigrant groups to arrive in New York are the reason for the theme of the chapels. Despite diverse languages, these immigrants came together in their worship. They are more human in scale and intimate in their presentation than the main Cathedral. The donors could use their own architect and the subsequent designs. Their construction could proceed separate from the overall construction of the Cathedral. Below are the remaining Chapels of the Tongues.
The Chapel of St. James
Henry Vaughan designed this chapel, dedicated 0n May 2, 1916. The exterior is rectangular in plan. It has a crenelated parapet at the roof and pinnacles on buttresses. It is pure English Gothic architecture of the 14th century. The interior walls are Bedford Indiana Limestone. It is 60 feet ling and 39 feet wide. This chapel seats 250 and has its own Skinner organ. The chapel was the gift of Elizabeth Scrivian Potter, wife of Bishop Henry Codman Potter.
Keystone View Company, 1929
The altar is gray Knoxville Tennessee marble and has elaborate limestone reredos. The tomb of Bishop Potter is in the chapel. It is Siena marble with the figure of the Bishop in Serevezza marble.
Many special people have been married in the chapel dedicated to the Spanish immigrants and the patron saint of Spain.
The Chapel of St. Ambrose
Carrere & Hastings designed the chapel, dedicated to the Italian community of New York City. It is considered Modern Renaissance style. The dedication of the chapel occurred in 1914. Sara Whiting Rives gifted the chapel.
The exterior of the Chapel of St. Ambrose is characterized by the half round windows. The Chapel is 50 feet long by 27 feet wide. The floor is inlaid with grey Siena, red Verona and cream colored cenere marble. Rosata marble lines the side walls. The altar and retable are of white alabaster.
The Chapel of St. Martin of Tours
On the exterior there are fleur de lis in quatrefoils. There are large, narrow pointed arch windows with single lights in the basement. The chapel honors French speaking immigrants. Clementina Furniss gifted the chapel designed by Cram & Ferguson and dedicated in 1918. As a Roman soldier, St. Martin clothed a beggar with half his cloak. This chapel,reserved for private devotion, is not included on any tour for visitors.
The interior style is 13th Century Gothic. The pavement is Tennessee pink marble, bordered by Belgian black marble. Indiana limestone lines the interior walls. In the chapel is the statue of Joan of Arc by Anna Hyatt Huntington. Sitting near the statue is a rough stone from the Rouen cell that imprisoned her. The free standing marble altar stands on red marble pillars.
The Chapel of St. Boniface
The exterior features Gutzon Borglum statues in niches of buttresses. They are Charlemagne, Alcuin, Gutenberg and Luther. The chapel dedicated on February 29, 1916 honors German speaking immigrants. The George Sullivan Bowdoin family gifted the chapel. Henry Vaughn designed This chapel. It is a pure specimen of English Gothic architecture of the 14th Century. Vaughn was the original architect for the Washington National Cathedral.
Indiana limestone walls are the interior. The pavement, sanctuary steps and altar consist of pink Knoxville marble with a heavy black border of Belgian marble. The altar is of grey Tennessee marble. The chapel is 48.5 feet long by 28 feet wide.
The Chapel of St. Ansgar
The exterior is rectangular in plan with parapets of quatrefoil tracery. There are pinnacles on the buttresses. Henry Vaughan designed the chapel again in the style of 14th Century Gothic. It is 66 feet long and 41 feet wide. Public subscriptions gifted the chapel in memory of William Reed Huntington. On April 3, 1918 it was dedicated to the needs of Scandinavian Christians.
The Chapel is double-sized similar to St James Chapel. The altar and the statues of the reredos are grayTennessee marble, given by Mrs. Julia Grinnell Bowdoin. The pavement is pink Tennessee marble and mottled Vermont marble. On the ambulatory side of the entrance are statues of St. Ansgar and St. John the Baptist carved by the John Evans and Company of Boston.
Stones from the Lady Chapel of Worcester Cathedral and stones from Ely Cathedrals are located in St. Ansgar’s Chapel.
Must See
As I finish this blog, I wish I could have found more and better images of these beautiful chapels, inside and out. The combination of cut stone and carved stone along with carved wood and stained glass make these amazing structures. Each is different in design and embellishments.
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New York Public Library Digital Collection
Columbia University, Digital Images Collection
Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture and Development, Andrew Dolkart
A Guide to the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in the city of New York, Edward Hagaman Hall
The Living Cathedral, St. John the Divine, A History and Guide, Howard E. Quirk
Photograph by Robert Llewellyn from the book American Gargoyles – Spirits In Stone
Where John Angel left off in 1940, Simon Verity finishes in 1996. On the left in the above image we see the anteater-like carving on the periphery of the Portal of Paradise by the sculptor John Angel. On the right, looking at the curious grotesque, we see the dog carved by Simon Verity. This intersection of carvings, some 50 years apart, calls out the difference in style between these two. Angel used the Renaissance technique of creating clay models for the carvers, then carving final details where needed. Verity, trained in the Gothic tradition, used no models. He carved directly into the stone working from sketches and drawings. This little corner of the Portal of Paradise leads us from John Angel to Simon Verity.
There is more to the story. Let’s look at a little larger view of this area.
Noah, Dog and Anteater
The statue of Noah by Simon Verity is part of the Portal of Paradise statues. The face of Noah is that of James Parks Morton, Cathedral Dean. Verity used many Cathedral and neighborhood people as models. The dog is Dean Morton’s beloved Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Pepe.
An ad for Barr, Thaw & Fraser proudly proclaiming their work of hand carving the altar screen for the Cathedral.
A reredos is a decorative screen above and behind the high altar. The reredos was structurally separate from the altar ( as compared to retables, a similar paneled, decorative screen attached to the altar back). Highly carved stone or wood panels provide niches for statues and the religious iconography. We are going to explore the evolution of the Cathedral reredos and look into the question of where did the reredos go.
The image below shows the reredos under construction in June of 1909. This was a period that involved the many decorative elements of the interior of the Choir and the Chancel. Architect George Lewis Heins had died in 1907 and his partner Christopher Grant LaFarge was still supervising work on the Cathedral. Their contract, however, ended with the death of one of the partners.
Partition of Reredos, Credence Table in place
Limestone, cut and carved for the screen, came from The Pierre de Lens quarry in Mouleon, France. This creamy white Oolitic limestone has a fine compact grain structure very suitable for carving and sculpture.
Pierre de Lens quarry
Sculpted Clay Models
Carl Bitter modeled the sculpture of Christ. Leo Lentelli of Barr, Thaw & Fraser carved it. Otto Jahnsen modeled the other figures. They were all carved by Barr, Thaw & Fraser. Following are images of those models:
The finished stone figure of Christ will be seven feet high, those of Moses and John the Baptist will be six feet 5 inches.
From the left, models for Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Moses. Old Testament figures
From the left, models for St. John the Baptist, St. Peter, St. James, St. John. New Testament figures.
The completed reredos is part of the 1911 consecration of the partial Cathedral.
Reredos as seen from Choir
The New Architect Weighs In
The altar screen was perhaps a little underwhelming in the context of the Heins & LaFarge era Choir and Sanctuary. We know that Ralph Adams Cram, the successor consulting architect, praised those in Seville. In a letter to Bishop Manning in 1935, Cram wrote –
“Having lived in the shadow, so to speak, of the Seville reredos, I realize its incomparable majesty and its unique place in the sphere of religious art. I thought I could visualize the cathedral, when once the choir is reconstructed and the great screen taken down, with this great area of smoldering gold drawing the whole thing together”
– Ralph Adams Cram
Reredos at Seville Cathedral
Perhaps the best example of reredos is in St. Thomas Church in Manhattan. The church was designed by the partnership of Cram and Goodhue. Architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and sculptor Lee Lawrie designed the reredos. It was carved by the Ardolino Brothers. The church opened in 1913.
Lee Lawrie’s reredos in the Cram and Goodhue designed St. Thomas Church at 53rd Street and 5th Avenue
Bishop Manning Presides over Removal of the Reredos
On October 14, 1945, a special service marked the new appearance of the high alter and sanctuary. Bishop Manning, clerical members, trustees and staff gathered on the steps leading to the sanctuary. A curtain hid the altar area while the altar screen was being razed. The curtain was removed to reveal an unobstructed view from the great western entrance to the eastern window at the back of the chapel of St. Saviour.
High Altar with Reredos gone
Closing the ceremony, Bishop Manning said:
The altar now stands out clearly and dominantly, as it should…those majestic columns around the apse have now come into their own. They were partly hidden and rendered ineffective by the reredos.
– Bishop William T. Manning
In closing, the Bishop expressed appreciation to Canon Edward N. West for the part he played in suggesting this important change and working with the architects to make it happen.
The Senior Guide tells us the rest of the story
Some months ago, I asked Tom Fedorek, Senior Guide and Cathedral historian, what may have happened to the carvings. As I read the words “razed” and “demolished” in various articles I feared the worse. Tom told me that there were remains and he would fill me in. He told me the cross below, now in the Bishops Green was originally atop the reredos.
Cross on Bishops Green, originally atop the Reredos behind the Altar. Image courtesy of Tom Fedorek
The One-Hundred Year old statues are in the Crypt
In the Crypt, Tom has identified all but two of the nine statues that made up the reredos.
Reredos Statues in the Crypt, Tom Fedorek identified these as Ezekiel (holding censer in his left hand), St. James (shape of head, position of hands), Jeremiah, John and Isaiah – Image Devin Yalkin, New York Times
Reredos statues in the Crypt
Moses, damaged, lying on floor of Crypt Photo and caption- Tom Fedorek
Jesus on the left, identifiable because he is taller and larger than any of the other figures. John the Baptist on the right, easily identifiable from his tattered camel’s hair coat. Both on the ground because of damage. Photo and caption- Tom Fedorek
On the left, two of the three Hebrew prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel), identifiable from their head coverings. On the right St. James in front, identifiable from his pilgrim’s staff. St. John behind him is not visible in photo, but is identifiable from the absence of a beard. Photo and caption – Tom Fedorek
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New York Public Library, Digital Collections
Museum of the City of New York
Special thanks to Tom Fedorek for his knowledge of the Cathedral
Philippe Petit holds the index card with details of his high wire walk to dedicate the tower cornerstone at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. His Sept. 29, 1982 walk lasted 5 minutes and 17 seconds, according to his notes. Other specifics include the rigging configuration and type of cable used and the objective: “bring the 1892 trowel for laying of the Jerusalem stone.” Petit has performed 96 walks, 16 of them at or in the Cathedral. Photo taken at his Shokan, N.Y. home on Sept 14, 2022. Photo – Robert F. Rodriguez
As the 40th anniversary of the dedication of the Southwest Tower approached, I knew catching up with Philippe Petit would be necessary. I met Philippe at his home in upstate New York wanting to capture his thoughts and memories of that day. For me it was an unforgettable day and thanks to Philippe, I got to relive it in his gracious video interview.
Philippe Petit and Robert F. Rodriguez pose for a photo outside Petit’s Shokan, N.Y. home on Sept. 14, 2022. The two met for a video oral history of Petit’s high wire walk at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine to dedicate the cornerstone and begin construction on the south tower. Behind them are the three practice wires that Philippe uses to stay in shape and be ready for the next walk. Photo – Robert F. Rodriguez
Another key to the backstory of that event was my friend Stephen Boyle. It turns out it was not the perfect day for the setting of the Jerusalem Stone. Steve tells me in this video about some of the challenges overcome that the audience wouldn’t see or ever know about.
“The Jerusalem Stone, the first cornerstone of the tower, is located in the second course. Most masons would acknowledge that getting the first course in correctly is one of the most important parts of a project…Since the scaffold was not complete on all four sides, it was not possible to set out the building line in advance of the ceremony…This meant we would have to take an educated guess at where the first stones should go and hope that it worked out (it didn’t but that’s another story).”
– Steve Boyle
My own day was one of mapping out the multiple scenes I wanted to cover. One man, lots of places to be at the same time. I’m thankful for multiple cameras.
