Description
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. Without copying any one historical model, and without compromising its authentic stone-on-stone construction by using modern steel girders, Saint John the Divine is an example of the 13th century High Gothic style of northern France. The Cathedral is 601 feet (186 meters) in length, and the nave ceiling reaches 124 feet (37.7 m) high. It is the longest Gothic nave in the United States, at 230 feet (70 m). Seven chapels radiating from the ambulatory behind the choir are each in a distinctive nationalistic style, some of them borrowing from outside the Gothic vocabulary. These chapels are known as the "Chapels of the Tongues", and they are devoted to St. Ansgar, patron of Denmark, who is venerated as an apostle to the Scandinavian countries; St. Boniface, apostle of the Germans; St. Columba, patron of Ireland and Scotland; St. Savior (Holy Savior), devoted to immigrants from the east, especially Africa and Asia; St. Martin of Tours, patron of the French; St. Ambrose, patron of Italy; and St. James, patron of Spain. The designs of the chapels are meant to represent each of the seven most prominent ethnic groups to first immigrate to New York City upon the opening of Ellis Island in 1892, the same year the Cathedral was begun.
In the center, just beyond the crossing, is the large, raised High Altar, behind which is a wrought iron enclosure containing the Gothic style tomb of the man who originally conceived and founded the cathedral, The Right Reverend Horatio Potter, D.D., LL.D., D.C.L., Bishop of New York. Later Episcopal bishops of New York, and other notables of the church, are entombed in side chapels.
Directly below this is a large hall in the basement, used regularly to feed the poor and homeless, and for meetings, and multiple crypts.
On the grounds of the cathedral, toward the south, are several buildings (including a Synod Hall and the Cathedral School), and a Biblical garden, as well as a large bronze work of public art by the cathedral's sculptor-in-residence, Greg Wyatt, known as the Peace Fountain, which has been both strongly praised and strongly criticized.
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