1892, Top of the Heap

The Presence and Mystery to Inspire

ANDREW DOLKART The period between the late 1880s and the beginning of World War I is when The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Brooklyn Museum all expanded. The Public Library was founded. Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Bronx Zoo were built. Columbia, NYU, City College, and Barnard all built their campuses. There was a huge expansion of the institutional realm.

JESSYE NORMAN These places all had the same idea about how they could be a place for all people to come, to learn, and to take part. They were concerned about being a part of the community in which they were built. All of these great public places putting forth their attitudes of “Come everybody. And be welcome.”

ANDREW DOLKART The New York Public Library was given land on Fifth Avenue. The Met was permitted to expand into Central Park, but other institutions had to look for places to build. Morningside Heights was the most convenient spot. So Morningside Heights becomes this academic, intellectual, institutional center of the city. It was called "The Acropolis of New York."

WAYNE KEMPTON Morningside Heights is one of the highest points in Manhattan. The plan was when you pulled into New York Harbor, you would see the Cathedral of St. John the Divine overlooking the entire city.

ANDREW DOLKART Actually, you would have to have a very strong pair of binoculars to see the Cathedral from New York Harbor. It was supposed to be visible to lower Manhattan because initially, the front of the Cathedral was planned to face south toward 110th Street. You would have had these very tall towers facing the southern end. It was a poetic notion. But in the Episcopal tradition, the Choir is at the east end. So the planners moved the Cathedral entrance to face west toward Amsterdam Avenue.

FRANCIS SYPHER The idea was that it would be up here on the hill where everybody could see it and the doors would be opened to all. That design was part of the conception. That conception is also reflected on the seven Chapels of the Tongues with each one devoted to a different immigrant group with services in their own languages.

STEPHEN FACEY The seven chapels represented seven of the immigrant communities in New York at that time. Today, you would have to build dozens of chapels to represent the ethnic neighborhoods of the city. SUSAN RODRIGUEZ The Cathedral was very complex to construct. The whole thing was a technical feat. There was a tremendous operation just to quarry the stone. The excavation took much longer than they had planned.

WAYNE KEMPTON When they started to dig the foundation, they couldn’t reach bedrock. They were running out of money. Pierpont Morgan donated half a million dollars, saying: “Here’s a little something to get you out of the hole.” I don’t know whether that’s an accurate quote, but it may be. In 1911, the Cathedral opened the Chancel, the Choir, and the Crossing: half a cathedral with a pulpit. By 1914, all the outer buildings had been completed. The Bishop’s House had 32 rooms. When Morgan was asked why he built such a big house, he said, “Why shouldn’t the Bishop live like the rest of us?”

THE REV. TOM PIKE There is no way to escape the fact that many of those we call robber barons helped build the Cathedral. But it’s just one piece of the story. Pierpont Morgan understood that to have a great city, you had to have a great space. Not just to convene people, but to inspire them. What was the Cathedral trying to inspire? It wasn’t just about having the biggest organ in North America, or having a hundred million yards of stained glass, or fitting 10,000 people. The tougher issue was, “What is it that would make the Cathedral inspiring?” Like all of us, Morgan and the others were looking to create something that had the presence and mystery to inspire. The Cathedral is a place where the human situation is magnified. History, the present, and the future are all magnified here.

Shortly before he died, Morgan was preparing to go on his final trip. He was not well, as he got into his car, ready to leave New York for the last time, he told the chauffeur, “Take me up to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.” It’s hard to know what was in Morgan’s head, but the Cathedral was the last thing he saw in New York.

Top left The eight granite columns were cut from the Wharff Quarry in Vinylhaven, Maine. They are 55 feet in height, 6 feet in diameter and weigh 130 tons each. The foundation of the columns goes down 135 feet to bedrock. Moving the columns was a feat of engineering. They were loaded on a specially designed barge and shipped to the city two at a time. A truck with wooden wheels pulled ahead by a powerful winch carried the columns to 112th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, a journey of about two miles. It took 19 days.

Top right Building surveyors photographed in the Town Building, December 10, 1895.

Middle left Raising the columns, 1904.

Middle right Stone carvers in the workshed of the north field. In the background, sculptures of the saints, which are now placed on the exterior roof line of the apse. The models were designed by Gutzon Borglum.

Bottom The Consecration of the Choir, the Crossing, and the Chapels of St. Saviour and St. Columba, April 19, 1911.

Between the Wars

For the Whole World

The period between the wars brought sweeping change to the nation and to the Cathedral. As America recovered from the First World War, the economy boomed, and major philanthropists flocked to complete New York City’s great sacred space. The Roaring Twenties were followed by the Great Depression. Times—and priorities about where to invest private and public money—once again changed.

“Whatever inspires and strengthens the religious belief and religious activity of the people, whatever ministers to their spiritual life, is of supreme importance. Without it all other efforts will fail. With it there lies the only hope of success.” CALVIN COOLIDGE

MARNIE WEIR At the end of World War I, a new energy kicked in. A new confidence in the American people, a post-war, “We’re going to do this ourselves.” The Cathedral was moving in a new direction.

DEAN KOWALSKI It was the 1920s, the War was over and the new Bishop, William T. Manning, was eager to resume building the Cathedral. Bishop Manning made the claim that $15 million would “Complete the Cathedral.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the Building Campaign— it was national news and widely followed across the country.

BISHOP WILLIAM THOMAS MANNING

The Cathedral stands for the beauty and greatness of human life, not as it is but as Christ will make it, and so it stands for unending progress, for everything that will make this a better city, human life nobler and happier, and this world a better place.

DEAN KOWALSKI The plans to finish the Cathedral captured America’s imagination. People, and not just Episcopalians, were thrilled with this vision to build something so big in this great city. “We’re going to build something amazing and what we are building is the Cathedral of St. John Divine.”

“The Cathedral when completed will be the greatest in the English-speaking world and will stand among the greatest ecclesiastical buildings ever erected… It will be one of the glories of Christendom; a sacrament in stone.”

CATHEDRAL ARCHIVES STEPHEN FACEY The Campaign kicked off at Madison Square Garden. It was a “Ten-week $15-million campaign to finish the Cathedral.” Ralph Adams Cram, who had succeeded the original architects, Heins & LaFarge, built a 12-foot, one-ton model of the Cathedral that was placed in the middle of Grand Central Station. Children passing through Grand Central would throw their pennies in for the building.

THE REV. TOM PIKE They used to have collections for the Cathedral on Sundays. People all over the country would put out their dollars and their dimes. It was a love offering from a great cross section of the population.

WILLIAM BRYANT LOGAN In the 1920s, the building of the nave became a project for the whole world, receiving gifts from the Emperor of Japan, the King of Siam, Adolph Ochs of the New York Times, Prime Minister Benes of Czechoslovakia, and thousands of ordinary citizens who thronged benefit track meets, poetry readings, boxing tournaments, horse shows, and other schemes—all to help finish the Cathedral.

Roosevelt, Rockefeller, and the Bishop

ANDREW DOLKART They were trying to get funding. And, in some cases, it was very successful. One of the issues that arose was whether The Cathedral was going to be for Episcopalians or an ecumenical place for all Christians. The rhetoric of various bishops, beginning with Henry Codman Potter and continuing with Manning, was that St. John’s was a church for all people and that it welcomed everyone. But when non-Episcopalians asked to be involved in the governance of the Cathedral, they were turned away. This became very specific in 1925. John D. Rockefeller Jr. gave half a million dollars, and along with it, sent a letter to Manning saying that he thought he should be appointed to the Cathedral Board.

WAYNE KEMPTON Bishop Manning announced the Rockefeller gift to the newspapers without mentioning Rockefeller’s “other suggestion” about joining the Board. The next morning, February 7, 1925, the headline in the New York Times was, “Rockefeller Gives Cathedral $500,000.” Up to that point all the trustees had been Episcopalian. Rockefeller was a devout Baptist. Rockefeller wrote Manning a second letter saying, “I see this article in the paper but there seems to be no mention of….” Manning wrote back, “Yes, thank you. We’ll take up the business of the trustees after the Cathedral is finished.” WAYNE KEMPTON When Bishop Manning was asked whether salvation could be found outside The Episcopal Church, he replied, “Perhaps so, but no gentleman would care to avail himself of it.”

DEAN MORTON There is a story that Bishop Manning even suggested to Rockefeller that he might begin studying for an Episcopalian confirmation.

ANDREW DOLKART Rockefeller was really irritated. He’d given his money but his request had been ignored. The end result was that it inspired Rockefeller to build his own church. And not only was he was going to build a church, but his church was going to be the rival of the Cathedral. Initially he wanted to build nearby on Morningside Drive where it would have towered over the Cathedral. He was unable to obtain that site, so he opted for Riverside Drive. The Riverside Church was finished quickly, totally funded, and it was taller than the Cathedral.

“Build it as a protest against brutality, hatred, and wrong. Build it, not solely for the Diocese of New York, but build it for all the living in the world. Build it as a contribution of America to the spiritual life of all people.”

ELIHU ROOT, NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE, US SECRETARY OF STATE

Top As the leader of the Cathedral Building Campaign, Franklin D. Roosevelt utilized the new media of national radio to challenge all Americans to “Complete the Cathedral.” Roosevelt’s broadcast was delivered before a cheering crowd of 15,000 at Madison Square Garden, January 18, 1925.

Bottom left John D. Rockefeller Jr. trailed by reporters in the Cathedral Close.

Bottom right The 1925 Building Campaign.