{"id":9,"date":"2007-12-21T17:12:30","date_gmt":"2007-12-21T23:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/st-john-the-undivine-9.htm"},"modified":"2007-12-22T14:47:40","modified_gmt":"2007-12-22T20:47:40","slug":"st-john-the-undivine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/st-john-the-undivine-9.htm","title":{"rendered":"St. John the Undivine"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> has the distinction of becoming a ruin before it is even finished. I hadn\u2019t been there in decades, and I had not known there was a serious fire in 2001. <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

The metal scaffolding that surrounded the tower in this picture\u00a0has come down in an admission that the tower will never be finished.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After entering the door one walks down the main aisle through on a grey-painted plywood corridor, such as used to grace the Toronto<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> airport. This seems to occupy 2\/3 of the building.<\/font><\/p>\n

The main altar and surrounding chapels are finished, but are already decaying.<\/font><\/p>\n

It is hard to understand what was going through the minds of the Episcopal worthies in the 1880s when they projected building the largest cathedral in the world.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What could it have been used for? Unlike Washington<\/st1:city>, New York<\/st1:state><\/st1:place> has no state occasions that require vast spaces. The 400 (New York<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> society) may have been Episcopalian, but they would have been lost in the echoing spaces of their cathedral. Perhaps it was simply American boosterism\u00a0 <\/span>— New York<\/st1:state><\/st1:place> will have the biggest cathedral in the world! Alas, the cathedral \u00a0<\/span>is instead becoming a modern ruin.\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

If the faith had been kept, it would matter little, but the Cathedral\u2019s website proudly chronicles the events it has hosted:<\/font><\/p>\n

(After some standard politically liberal stuff in the 1960s)<\/font><\/p>\n

1973: Tennessee<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> Williams is honored with an evensong service incorporating raeings from his dramatic works and other writings.<\/font><\/p>\n

1982 Halveti-Jerrahi Order of Dervishes at Istanbul<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> performs Islamic liturgical dance beneath ten Crossing\u2019s dome.<\/font><\/p>\n

1984 Cathedral exhibits Christa, a bronze crucifix by British sculptor Edwina Sandys depicting Christ as a woman.<\/font><\/p>\n

1986 Philippe Petit performs Ascent<\/em> on a high wire.<\/font><\/p>\n

1990 Big Bird and other Muppets pay tribute to puppeteer Jim Henson at his memorial service.<\/font><\/p>\n

1999 Stonewall 30: A Sacred Celebration<\/em> brings thousands from New York<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>\u2019s gay and lesbian community.<\/font><\/p>\n

The sadness of it all.<\/font><\/p>\n

\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York has the distinction of becoming a ruin before it is even finished. I hadn\u2019t been there in decades, and I had not known there was a serious fire in 2001. \u00a0 The metal scaffolding that surrounded the tower in this picture\u00a0has come down in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}