Recently a group of New York City tour guides were invited to increase our knowledge of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine—the “unfinished” Cathedral-- by attending a specially organized two-day seminar on two of the coldest, snowiest days of the winter. Day One, in the 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 not for a group of well-read New York guides who had been leading groups to the Cathedral 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 Juliette Frydman. Kevin soon began letting us all contribute and embellish his memorized accounts of Cathedral history, including the struggle between two architectural firms in the 1890s which ended up with part of the Cathedral being Romanesque Revival and part being French Gothic Revival—two styles that usually clash but are unusually harmonious in St. John the Divine.
After lunch, we had a chance, casual meeting with the Dean of the Cathedral (an Arian from Darien, Connecticut) and were able to ask any question we liked. Following this, we had a special Numerology tour of the cathedral with an expert. 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, and their stories, such as the Media window with its images of Jack Benny on the radio and the Gutenberg printing press. Also, the American History window donated by the Astor family in memory of John Jacob Astor, who died on the Titanic. It’s sinking is depicted in the lower right corner of the window.
After lunch on the second day, they saved the best for last: the one thing I’d been wanting to do for 20 years: The Vertical Tour, in which we would be permitted to venture thru locked doors and to climb up 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, 4 flights up to view the nave from a balcony landing. Second stop, a few more flights to look down on the altar from 8 floors up, then another few flights up to the top of the ceiling, 12 flights up. Along the way, the guide spent a few minutes at each landing discussing the art and the windows from this wonderful vantage point, rarely seen by most visitors close up.
Just as I thought we’d be heading downstairs, the guide led us up thru more passages and more flights to the huge attic area (who knew it existed?) above the cathedral ceiling, where we viewed the giant iron supports and the Guastavino tile ceiling from above. Then she took us up even FURTHER…this time to the very roof of the Cathedral…to the stone balconies that ring the building and we viewed the Morningside Heights campus (and neighborhood) for blocks…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 view into the Nave from above.
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