The Cathedral of St. John the Divine

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine was built in 1892 on 1047 Amsterdam Avenue in Morningside Heights in Gothic Revival and Romanesque Revival styles. The cathedral was never finished because it was meant to be built using true Gothic style methods and would have taken several hundred years to complete. In 2001, a fire broke out and destroyed the cathedral’s gift shop which caused a tremendous amount of smoke damage to several areas. The restoration was completed in 2008 and the cathedral was fully opened once again.The Newberry Prize winner, Madeleine L’Engle, who wrote A Wrinkle in Time, volunteered at St. John the Divine and was buried in the Cathedral in 2007. The cathedral is also home to the largest rose window in the United States and features many modern images like television alongside traditional church imagery in the stained glass windows. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is also home to a triptych by Keith Haring, a trio of peacocks and twelve tapestries (recently restored) that were designed by baroque master Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, and woven for Francesco Barberini, who was the nephew of Pope Urban VII.