The Cathedral Church of St. John The Divine on 112th and AmsterdamI'm not sure that I should admit this on here, because perhaps I am the only New Yorker who didn't know about this gorgeous, mammoth piece of architecture sitting right in the middle of
Harlem, but I had NO IDEA that this structure even EXISTED in my city!
After dropping
my friend off at the train station Sunday morning, Dan and I decided to do some exploring before taking our car back to the lot where we keep it (our real motive was scouting out a new brunch place). We were heading north on Amsterdam when suddenly, up ahead, I spotted this grandiose Cathedral. It seemed to pop up out of nowhere! I made Dan pull over while I jumped out of the car (into the cold, arctic winds) for my photo op.
Since I was obviously so clueless about this impressive piece of architectural history, I did a little googling to get the scoop:
~it is the largest cathedral in the world (
St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is larger, but not a cathedral)
~the first cornerstone of the cathedral was laid in 1892
~the project was plagued with problems from the start
~although not complete, the first service was held the day before Pearl Harbor (1941), but construction came to a halt after the U.S. entered WWII
~work did not resume again until 1979
~in 2001, a fire halted construction once again, and still today it is only two-thirds complete (with completion not expected anytime soon)
(sources 1 & 2) And that concludes our history lesson for today. :)
