Jim Dykes (www.richandfamoustours.com) is back to share his thoughts on his incredibly thorough visit to one of our city's greatest buildings.
Here's Jim:
Recently a group of New York City tour guides were invited to increase our knowledge of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine—or "St. John the Unfinished"--by attending a specially organized seminar on two of the coldest, snowiest days of the winter. On the first morning, we had a general highlights tour of the cathedral. The guide, Kevin Blum, was a very nice young fellow from Iowa, who had followed his studies (and his girlfriend) to New York City. His tour was fine and efficient, but underwhelming for a group of well-read New York guides who had been leading groups to the church for many years.
In our group alone, we calculated about 100 years of NYC guide experience, including myself, Mike Brennan, Tour Goddess Jane Marx and another guide who doesn't want her name shown. Kevin soon began letting us all contribute and embellish his accounts of Cathedral history, including the struggle between the architectural firms in the 1890s which resulted in two architectural styles--Romanesque Revival and French Gothic Revival—which usually clash but are surprisingly harmonious at St. John the Divine.
After lunch, we had a chance, casual meeting with the Dean of the Cathedral (an Aryan from Darien) and were able to ask any question we liked. Following this, we had a special Numerology tour. Various numbers are repeated quite a bit for various religious reasons (4 signs of the cross, 7 deadly sins, 12 apostles, etc.). It doesn’t sound interesting but the numerologist, a young volunteer named Howell, was excellent and spoke compellingly for 2 hours.
The next morning began with an in-depth tour of the fabulous stained glass windows, including the Media window (with its images of Jack Benny on the radio and the Gutenberg printing press) and the American History window donated by the Astor family in memory of John Jacob Astor, who died on the Titanic. (Its sinking is depicted in the lower right corner of the window.)
After lunch on the second day, we finally got to do the one thing I’d been wanting to do for 20 years: The Vertical Tour, where we would be permitted to venture through locked doors and climb more than a dozen flights to view the Cathedral from above. The guide distributed flashlights and told us the rules. We climbed up and up. First stop: a view of the nave from a balcony 4 flights up. Second stop: a view of the altar from 8 floors up. Third stop: a close-up view of the ceiling 12 stories above the floor. Along the way, the guide spent a few minutes at each landing discussing the art and the windows from this wonderful vantage point.
Just as I thought we’d be heading downstairs, the guide led us up through more passages and more flights to the huge attic area above the cathedral ceiling (who knew it existed?), where we viewed the giant iron supports and the Guastavino tiles from the flip side. Then she took us up even FURTHER, to the very roof of the Cathedral, to the stone balconies that ring the building where we viewed the Morningside Heights in its entirety. Truly breathtaking.
Of course, my camera’s battery died after only a few pictures (isn’t that always the case?) but a few pictures survived of the gorgeous limestone carvings and the bird's eye view of the nave.
After years of restoration, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine is now entirely open to the public...though the Vertical Tour is a rare offering.
Beautiful photos...
Posted by: Jennifer | April 17, 2009 at 05:25 PM