The '70s, the '80s, and Then Some

Here for the First Time

DEAN MORTON Everything was happening. If someone came in to the Cathedral and we saw that they had energy and agency, we tried to pull them in. It was about people saying, “Let’s do this.” Then we would find good leadership and they took it from there.

JOSÉ V. TORRES Jim was all over the place but we loved him. He would notoriously call late at night and want a meeting. “Come on, let’s have a talk.” He would brainstorm with you and you would say yes. He was exciting, and he got us excited. Because of our youth programs, we saw Black and Latino kids come in here for the first time.

THE REV. SANDYE WILSON Jim Morton was deeply connected to the students. He was always looking at how you could connect the reality of change, and that included changes in the Morningside and Harlem neighborhood and the Cathedral demographics, with the gift of the arts.

THE REV. CANON TOM MILLER The Cathedral community responded directly to local needs. As the area around the Cathedral became home to many Hispanic and Latino immigrants. And as homelessness became a critical issue throughout the city, St. John the Divine initiated what would grow to be Cathedral Community Cares. Aspects of the mission included a shelter and feeding program, immigration advice services, and the Crisis Intervention Center—a drop-in social service located in the base of the south tower. “Learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” ISAIAH 1:17

DEAN MORTON We were a tower of white AngloSaxon Protestantism in a Black, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican neighborhood. We had an extraordinarily varied constituency that we had to answer to. Our first duty had to be serving the community in which we live. We started the Manhattan Valley Youth Program, programs for families and kids, food programs, a soup kitchen, a men’s shelter, we even had a Cathedral baseball team. In 1973, we founded the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, UHAB. At its 30th anniversary in 2003, UHAB recorded over 30,000 rehabilitated apartments. Homes for the Homeless was conceived at the Cathedral in 1986 and initially financed by business leader Leonard Stern. It still exists today, as one of the city’s largest private housing organization. The single largest Cathedral social-justice program was The Valley, a seven-day-a-week teenage counseling center started in 1978 by John Bess and Alfonso Wyatt. At its peak, it served some 4,000 young people, largely from Harlem.

THE REV. JESSE JACKSON Jim took the lead on housing and homelessness. His were among the earliest initiatives for urban homesteading. His was one for the first churches in New York to shelter homeless men, even to bring them to the Cathedral’s pulpit. He is a man of the City in the best sense—the human city and the City of God.

Top Group photo of the Manhattan Valley Youth Program.

Bottom The Rev. Mary Michael Simpson (center) with her sponsors, the Very Rev. James Parks Morton and Sister Andrea, at her ordination, January 9, 1977.

The Ordination of Women and LGBT Priests, 1977

Top The Ordination of the Rev. Sandye Wilson. Front: the Rev. Martha Blacklock, the Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris, the Rev. Pauli Murray, the Rev. Canon Susan Harriss. Middle: the Rev. Canon Jimmye Kimmey, the Rev. Jackie Schmidt, the Rev. Ellen Barrett, the Rev. Canon Jane Henderson. Back: the Rev. Sandye Wilson, the Rt. Rev. Gayle Harris, and the Rev. Susan Schaeffer.

Bottom The ordination of the Rev. Mary Michael Simpson, January 9, 1977. HONOR MOORE The radical part of feminism was gearing up 1968-69, which is the same time that gay rights exploded. My father, having six daughters, was an early advocate for women’s ordination, but he thought that that great a change should take place within the settled processes of the Church. His mode had always been to introduce change from within a system in order to bring as many people as possible along. He was always radical but he was also pragmatic. His diction might not have been as radical as his attitude. He always had in mind that he was speaking to those who may have held another position.

THE REV. SANDYE WILSON There were rumblings and there were women who were pushing for ordination to happen. But up until the late 1970s, women’s ordination was not a reality in The Episcopal Church. I wasn’t called to be a deacon. I wasn’t called to be a nun. I did not believe in poverty, chastity, or obedience, so I probably would have gotten thrown out of the convent. I felt called to be a priest and I was just waiting for the God of surprises to help to make it happen

When those first women, the Philadelphia 11, got ordained in the summer of 1974, they couldn’t get ordained in your regular white cathedral of The Episcopal Church. They were ordained in a Black church in Philadelphia.

HONOR MOORE When the first 11 women were ordained—not through the system—my father was furious. He later understood that the renegade ordination had been the right step, that the more radical women and the participating bishops had been right.

WAYNE KEMPTON The first woman to be ordained a priest in the Diocese of New York was the Rev. Carol Linda Anderson in January 1977. This ordination was followed quickly by Julia Sibley, Mary Michael Simpson, Isabel Carter Heyward, Ellen Barrett, Annette Ruark, Barbara Schlachter, Fleming Rutledge, and Sister Columba Gilliss.

REBECCA MERRILL Among the nine women ordained that January was the Rev. Ellen Barrett, a founding member and first co-president of Integrity, an organization formed to advocate the participation of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals in The Episcopal Church. Ellen Barrett was the first openly acknowledged lesbian priest of the American Episcopalian church.

BISHOP MOORE I had been through many crises both during the Civil Rights days and in the peace movement. I was used to criticism and knew that it was part of being a bishop. I had no idea, however, that the reaction to the ordination of Ellen Barrett would be more violent and last longer than all the rest of such experiences put together. Loyalties, betrayals, anger, sorrow, now joy and relief. It all came flooding out.

THE REV. SANDYE WILSON In 1980, I was the first Black woman ordained at the Cathedral. Pauli Murray, the first Black woman ordained in America, presented me. Pauli Murray was a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, a founder of the National Organization of Women, a professor of constitutional law at Yale and at Brandeis. She argued before the United States Supreme Court. Ruth Bader Ginsberg said that she would not be on the Court now had it not been for Pauli. The second Black woman ordained in America was Mary Adabanajo of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. Mary produced the first Afro-centric Sunday School curriculum in The Episcopal Church by a Black priest. She was one of the people in my ordination service. The third Black woman ordained in the nation was Barbra Harris, who went on to become the first woman bishop of any color in the WorldWide Anglican Communion. Barbara Harris was the Bishop’s Chaplain in my ordination. Gayle Harris—now Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts— was the deacon at my service. That ordination has become a legend of history.

BISHOP MARY GLASSPOOL If you were a lesbian, it was a huge mixed message. It was okay to be a woman and be ordained, but it was not okay to be gay and ordained. And you had to separate gay men from lesbians because the gender differences were applicable. The church had always had gay men—always, from time immemorial. The question was, were we honest about it or were we open about it?

REBECCA MERRILL It was a time of massive progressive change in The Episcopal Church and at the Cathedral. As the saying goes, though, hindsight is 20/20, and we’ve now heard troubling stories of what was happening behind the scenes. While Bishop Moore wielded his position to enact necessary and important changes in the culture of the church, it seems he also crossed boundaries in his personal relationships in inappropriate ways.

BISHOP GLASSPOOL It’s difficult to know that your heroes, especially heroes of your childhood, had clay feet or were imperfect. The recent public revelation of Paul Moore’s sexual misconduct and abuse of power has highlighted some of the changes in the Diocese. It is worth saying, and it is worth repeating, that we didn’t get here overnight and the healing is not going to come overnight. It’s a process, it’s a journey. It’s going to be gradual. He is not the only one. We need to be discerning about what is productive and helpful to raise out of the past, what will be healing, and what we may need to correct the narrative around but also let go of. We’re asked to deal with that complexity.

Art and Advocacy

DEAN MORTON The other aspect of what we were doing was about intellectual, literary, and artistic New York. We gave the Big Apple Circus its first residence in 1977. In 1978 we began to invite visual and performing artists to become Cathedral Artists in Residence. Our first New Year’s Eve Concert for Peace in 1983 paired Leonard Bernstein with Odetta. Muriel Rukeyser initiated the Poetry Wall with poems written by both children and prisoners from all over the country. A sign invited readers to write to the poets—and many did, and some important and compassionate relationships were born. We established The American Poets Corner in 1984.

STEPHEN FACEY Jim was following the belief that artists and civic activists, in concert with the religious community, are among the people in society doing sacred work.

PHILIPPE PETIT I believe I was the first person to become a Cathedral Artist in Residence. It is something extremely important and inspiring in my life. I’ve associated myself with this church for almost four decades. My heart, my home, is the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

GRIFFIN DUNNE My introduction to St. John was sort of celebrity-oriented. I was invited to be a speaker at the 1982 Nuclear Disarmament Rally, it was huge. I remember how vast St. John’s was, and how full it was, thousands and thousands of people. We all wore t-shirts with everybody’s name listed: Peter, Paul and Mary; Joan Baez; Bob Dylan; Patti Smith; Susan Sarandon; Bonnie Raitt; James Taylor; Jackson Browne; Bruce Springsteen—everybody was listed except me. I went through the shirt like three times to see if my eyes were deceiving me. They were not. WAYNE KEMPTON During Morton’s time these grounds looked like the infield of the Indianapolis 500 with cars parked in every direction. It was extremely open with a lot of people: a couple on the grass; groups outside—here, there, and in every room—all the windows wide open, and usually with somebody hanging out of them. Not every churchman appreciated Moore’s activism and Morton’s eccentricities.

BOB PENNOYER I served on the Cathedral Board for nine years. I was there because I liked Jim Morton and I liked Paul Moore and I believed in what they were doing. In the early years, Jim did not pay much attention to the budget. We never knew what Jim was going to do next. He didn’t care; he just spent the money. Finally we told him we had to have a budget approved by the Board and he had to stay within the budget. Things improved after that.

"I believe everything we dream can come to pass through our union we can turn the world around we can turn the earth's revolution we have the power People have the power"

PATTI SMITH AND FRED “SONIC” SMITH

The June 12, 1982 National March and Rally for Nuclear Disarmament. Approximately one million people marched in New York City against nuclear arms and an end to the arms race and the Cold War. It was the largest political demonstration in American history. A celebrity-packed kickoff concert for the March was held at the Cathedral.

Celebration and Sorrow

DEAN MORTON In 1976, the Trustees made the decision to continue building the Cathedral and to train young people to be apprentice stonecutters and carvers—particularly young minority women and men from our community. Over the next three years enough stone had been cut and carved to begin the construction of the southwest Tower of St. Paul.

GREG WYATT Approaching the Cathedral, I would hear the stone masons, “tap tap tap.” That sound and that construction caught the imagination of everyone in New York. To hear the metal hammers chisel stone in the cutting yard and witness this master achievement being built here in New York City was remarkable.

DEAN MORTON On September 29, 1982, the great moment took place. All heads looked up to where Philippe Petit was set to walk the high wire to secure the cornerstone in our new tower.

PHILIPPE PETIT I strung a wire 16 stories high, crossing Amsterdam Avenue to the South Tower, to celebrate the renewal of the Cathedral construction after a 41-year building hiatus. I crossed the sky carrying the same golden trowel that had been used for the first cornerstone in 1892.

HOWARD RUBENSTEIN Philippe stopped New York City in its tracks.

PAMELA MORTON The 1980s were a time of celebration and sorrow. The AIDS crisis in New York was enormous. People needed a place to be able to lay their concerns and their mourning.

BRAD GOOCH People were dying of AIDS who were close to the Cathedral, including many priests in this Diocese. Before it had been one of those “don’t ask, don’t tell” situations, but AIDS blew that apart. We were all in it.

PAMELA MORTON In 1985 the AIDS Memorial was established in the Cathedral’s Medical Bay. There were benefits by the Gay Men’s Health Chorus, the Cathedral hosted the AIDS Memorial Quilt, and of course, the AIDS Book of Remembrance. When people heard about the book, they came from all over the country to write in it. DEAN MORTON It is a large volume in which the names of those who had died of AIDS are inscribed. Beside the lectern and memorial book is a tall memorial candle that burned night and day. The names of all New York AIDS victims were also honored in the annual AIDS Memorial Concert. The Memorial and the Concert were powerful and deeply moving projects.

“As a person with AIDS, I’m alone with my illness and my fear. But the feeling of being alone is different in the Cathedral…. This space is alive because so much life has gone into it. All the belief and a sincerity and warmth that people have given it fills the place... The Cathedral is strong enough to allow me to be weak. It’s one of the only places I have ever felt safe.” MARK REYNOLDS

ELIE WIESEL Under Jim Morton’s leadership, the Cathedral became an oasis of beauty in a city of violence, an instrument of dialogue and religious reconciliation in a time of hatred and intolerance. Of human beings like James Morton, there are all too few. To be human is to see what others see, to break one’s solitude: our worst enemy. Jim felt the anguish of the survivors, encouraged our questions, and respected our silence.

THE REV. CANON JAY WEGMAN People used to say that Jim Morton was the Pied Piper for all the crazies in New York City, and he totally was. Just totally. But that’s what made him great.

PAMELA MORTON There were people who thought that Jim never said no and that maybe he should have.

DEAN MORTON Oh? I don’t think so...

Top The Cathedral’s stoneworkers.

Bottom left Governor Mario Cuomo representing New York State’s Job Development Agency, mid-1980s.

Bottom middle The laying of the foundation stone, atop the south tower. Philippe Petit, Bishop Moore, and Dean Morton, September 29, 1982.

9/11 and the Fire, 2001

The attacks on September 11 resonated around the world, but the people of New York City lived it: the images of buildings we knew, the fire visible for months, the countless small memorials at fire stations and parks, the placards seeking missing loved ones. Weeks later, the Cathedral itself was threatened by a devastating fire.

The City Reached Out for Prayer

“The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.”

W. H. AUDEN, INDUCTED INTO THE AMERICAN POETS CORNER, 2005

THE REV. CANON JAY WEGMAN On the morning of 9/11 we started tolling the bells. We didn’t stop until six that night. Everybody was out in the streets and people were streaming in to the Cathedral.

STEPHEN FACEY Within hours, we cleared the gym to use as a blood bank and Synod Hall for use as a morgue. Thankfully, this proved unnecessary, but the resident clergy decided to keep the Cathedral open around the clock and hold evening services for as long as necessary.

KEITH HINKSON 9/11 is a vivid memory for everyone that lived through it. At that point, I was the Assistant Director of Security. Immediately after the planes hit, we saw a huge uptick of traffic at the Cathedral. People started coming in record numbers; I mean they were coming in day and night and it stayed that way for days. We stayed open 24 hours a day. The readiness and willingness to leave these doors open at a time when the city reached out for prayer was a decision made without hesitation, without regard to how we were going to staff it, security-wise or maintenance-wise. It was going to happen no matter what it took.

JENNIFER DORR WHITE My husband John and I both had a need to be in community with people. We heard that there was going to be a gathering at the Cathedral. I remember people needing to be together sitting in a circle crying.

TOM HURWITZ There were special masses for weeks. It was very profound and very necessary.

STEPHEN FACEY Until 9/11 the largest number of firefighters lost in a single event was the 12 firefighters of the 1966 Madison Square fire. There is a memorial in the Cathedral’s Labor Bay honoring them. Two or three days after 9/11, it was announced that over 343 firefighters, 60 police officers, and 8 paramedics had been lost. KEITH HINKSON We’ve always had a very close relationship with the fire department. There is an engine company right across the street on 113th Street. The Cathedral's Firefighters Memorial became a place to come for the whole city.

THE REV. CANON JAY WEGMAN The Cathedral is in the middle of Manhattan; it is on one of the highest points of the Island. It became the spiritual crossroads of the city. On the Sunday after 9/11, people just flocked here.

STEPHEN FACEY In the Narthex there is an Altar for Peace cut from a huge American walnut tree by George Nakashima. That Altar was a daily gathering place for folks to leave notes, photos, and newsprint messages and poems for months after 9/11.

MEREDITH BERGMANN The pervasive fellowship that many of us shared after the attacks, the pure, sharp gratitude for the living people around us has faded. But I still feel that spirit in the way people treat each other in this building.

“After 9/11 we need your kind of ministering more than we have in a long time. Now more than ever, we need the Cathedral, harnessing the energies of love through thousands of beautiful acts of kindness and generosity. I believe God has blessed us with your presence. Deo Gratias. Shalom. Salaam Alaikum. Peace.”

GOVERNOR MARIO CUOMO AT THE INSTALLATION OF THE VERY REV. DR. JAMES A. KOWALSKI, 2002

GEOFF SMITH The aftershocks of 9/11 lasted for a long time. We were still reeling in December, still reading the stories of the lost and learning the details of the attack. And then, a much smaller tragedy, but one that felt like an echo: the fire at the Cathedral. The stories of the fire continue to haunt everyone here.

STEPHEN FACEY At dawn, on Tuesday, December 18, I was called by security alerting me to a fire in the North Transept. When I arrived, there was a lot of smoke penetrating the Cathedral. The flames had engulfed the entire space.

MARIE DEL TEJO I was walking up Amsterdam Avenue and saw the fire. My heart dropped. There were firefighters everywhere.

JENNIFER DORR WHITE It started at 6 am. We were getting ready to take our daughter Hannah to school at the Cathedral but then something was on the news. The Cathedral was on fire. It was awful. We saw it and we were all imagining that we were about to lose this building that meant so much to us. It went on for 12 hours.

KEITH HINKSON Because of 9/11, everyone thought it was a terrorist act. By the time I got in, they had shut down the streets, 110th to 113th and all the traffic going down Amsterdam Avenue.

“The intense heat shattered several stainedglass windows, and orange towers of fire leapt 40 feet in the air, as the cavernous sanctuary was filled from floor to vaulted ceiling with a haze of inky smoke…. The firefighters treated the Cathedral tenderly. They refrained from smashing the stained-glass windows, a measure that would have vented the fire and made conditions less smoky. They used heat sensors to detect flames to cut down on the amount of water used.” CATHEDRAL ARCHIVES

Top December 18, 2001.

Bottom left The 1925 Ralph Adams Cram model of the Cathedral that had been placed in Grand Central Station, destroyed by the fire.

Bottom upper right Former President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Clinton, and Keith Hinkson, December 24, 2001.

Bottom lower right New York firefighters honored at the Cathedral. STEPHEN FACEY The fire department’s action saved the important elements of the Nave, the Baptistery, and even the elaborate wood carvings of the Great Choir stalls. The flames did, however, seriously damage two tapestries hanging at that time.

MARLENE EIDELHEIT Those of us who work in the Textile Conservation Lab waited on 113th Street watching the fire burn for hours and hours. People would come out of the Cathedral and say, “The tapestries are okay.” Then someone would say, “They’re gone.” We had no way of knowing what was happening. The fireman let me in at about 11 pm. It was dark. The electricity was off. The Cathedral was filled with smoke. You couldn’t see across the nave. The tapestries had fallen down and were gathered like two huge wet rags on tables. Just these big dark wet rags, all crumbled up. The Last Supper had burned from the top down. Most of the Apostles’ heads were burnt away. But Christ’s head was still there; you could still see some of the nimbus radiating light. In the second tapestry, The Resurrection, only Christ’s figure had been burned away. JOSÉ V. TORRES I see the Cathedral as a living organism. It’s not just a building. It reflects certain times, certain moments, and history. You feel it. Those of us who had been here a long time really grieved that this “being” could be hurt that way. A lot of us cried when we saw what had happened.

STEVEN FACEY Late in the day, a young man introduced himself as the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Managements staff person. He had ordered huge pumpers on 111th Street to get the water out of the Cathedral’s basement. Our basement houses the boiler plant for the Close. Beneath it is a huge sub-basement, perhaps 20-30 feet deep, created during the original construction. The water there was within a foot of the boilers. Without those pumpers the Cathedral would have been out of business for months. The fire department’s performance was extraordinary.

JAKE MAYER EISNER The Cathedral was always an important place for the local fire department. They went there on their breaks to pray.

DEAN KOWALSKI I never doubted that we would get the Cathedral back. I saw the faces of the firefighters and the people on the street that terrible day. Their reverence and love made clear their commitment to the Cathedral.

THE REV. CANON JAY WEGMAN The fire happened exactly a week before Christmas. We wanted to open for the Christmas service. We were in there scrubbing down every single chair of soot. Thankfully, the stars aligned, and the Cathedral opened.

JENNIFER DORR WHITE We didn’t know what to expect. We went to the Christmas Eve service and the smell of the smoke was so strong but I remember everybody was there, just sitting there on Christmas Eve being so grateful that the Cathedral had survived.

KEITH HINKSON There was such a strong smell of smoke that we left the Cathedral doors open all day and night for a week. We managed to air it out so that we could have services for Christmas. That year former President Clinton and Hillary and Chelsea came in a show of support for the Cathedral.

THE REV. CANON JAY WEGMAN I got a call that Hillary Clinton, our Senator at the time, would like to attend Christmas Eve services. Hillary came, the President came, and Chelsea Clinton came. I saw about 15 of our local firefighters in the Cathedral. At the Offertory the firefighters came up, and the Cathedral went berserk. The worshipers had gone berserk over the Clintons, but then when the firefighters came up the whole place erupted with applause, cheers, tears.