A NOBLE PILE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 70, 24 March 1933, Page 6

A NOBLE PILE

NEW YORK CATHEDRAL

ST. JOHN THE DIVINE

RISING GOTHIC MASS

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YOBK, February 16. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which las been building for 40 years, is two-thirds complete. Its ultimate cost will be 30,000,000 dollars, and it will rank with world cathedrals, though being surpassed in acreage by the Cathedral of Seville and by St. Peter's, Borne. Its architecture will follow the best Gothic traditions. During the.past twenty years it has been altered to obliterate the first vision of its architects, which is described technically as "Eomanesque, scrambled with Byzantine." It- will take five years more than Wren.took in building

The original architects, Hems ana La Farge, are succeeded by Ealph Adams Cram. The builder is a "Welshman named Bell, to whom long years spent in building churches have given easy familiarity with sacred edifices. A grand head," Bell remarked, pointing to the mighty head of St Peter in the north portal, "though the fellow who did it is what I do not like—a Scotsman." Wilson and John Angel, whose statues are to adorn the west front) are Englishmen; The nave of the cathedral is solid Gothic, a stupendous mass of . grey granite masonry, 225 feet long by 132 feet wide, finished to the comb' of the copper and lead roof, 175 feet 'above the pavement. The towers, now 150 feet from the ground, will eventually rise to 250 feet, and have turrets set on each of the four corners. North and south of the crossing, the transepts will project 175 feet. The only colour yet filtering into the grey pile is from the rose window on the west floor —bigger than the rose window of Notre Damo or Our Lady of Bheims—casting rainbow hues on the shadowy piers and slender columns, strung like harp strings from floor to vault. Beneath it wxll be main portal, where will be set up tho monumental bronze gilt doors sculptured by Wilson in panels telling stones of the Old and New Testaments.