Cathedral of Saint John the Divine

Located at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue (between 110 Street (a.k.a. "Cathedral Parkway") and 113 Street) in Manhattan, the cathedral claims to be the largest cathedral in the world (based on length) and is a popular tourist attraction. It is almost certainly the world's largest unfinished Gothic cathedral.

The property for the cathedral was bought in 1887, and a design by the New York firm of Heins and LaFarge in a Romanesque style was accepted the next year. The foundations were completed at enormous expense to their plan. However, the building as it appears today conforms primarily to a second design campaign from the prolific Gothic Revival[?] architect Ralph Adams Cram of the Boston firm Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson.

Construction on the cathedral was halted in 1910, because the then-bishop felt that the church's funds would better be spent on works of charity. In the 1970s, Bishop Paul Moore decided that the construction should be continued, in part to preserve the crafts of stonemasonry[?] by training neighborhood youths in them, thus providing them with a valuable skill. The construction continued until the 1990s; the new generation of stonecarvers have since dispersed.

External link

• http://www.stjohndivine.org/