On a tour of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine last week with the Museum of the City of New York, looking at the hidden genius of Guastavino’s tiles, we were led into the usually off-limits crypt of the still-unfinished church. While on the exterior, St. John the Divine shows its unfinished nature through its asymmetrical facade, inside, it’s the crypt that most obviously shows the work that still remains. A Guide to the Cathedral from 1921 posited that it might take 700 years for the Cathedral to be completed, since it was employing true Gothic building methods, but there are no current plans for new construction. To lay the foundation of the cathedral, the builders had to dig 300 feet down in a project funded by J.P. Morgan. The Guastavinos did the ceiling of the crypt, which is laid out in the shape of a crucifix. Today, that crucifix is truncated… Read More