Bishop Horatio Potter raised the issue of building a cathedral in 1872, whereupon this was decided unanimously and in 1873 the charter for the cathedral was issued to St. John the Divine. In 1888, the 5.25 hectare area was selected for the cathedral, on which the foundation stone was laid on December 27, 1892 on the day of St. John. The design by George Lewis Heins and John LaFarge envisaged a Byzantine - Romanesque style, which was changed in 1911 by Ralph Cram in the neo-Gothic style after the great dome had been completed in 1909 by Rafael Guastavino . With a floor area of 11,240 m², a volume of 476,350 m³ and a length of 183.2 m, it is the largest Anglican church and the fourth largest Christian church in the world after St. Peter's Basilica , the Notre-Dame de la Paix Basilica and the Seville Cathedral .
John the Divine was supposed to be the largest church, but it is only two thirds completed. The construction work was temporarily stopped in 1999 due to lack of funds. Work had also been suspended from 1941 to 1979. In December 2001 a fire destroyed the north transept, and restoration began in 2003.
The altar designed by the contemporary artist Keith Haring is striking .
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , the nave will be used as a makeshift hospital for at least 200 patients from April 2020. The makeshift hospital is being built by the neighboring Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital . The crypt under the nave serves as a storage room for the treating doctors.
organ
The organ goes back to an instrument that was built in 1906-10 by the Ernest M. Skinner Company organ builder as opus 150. In 1954 the Aeolian-Skinner Company under the leadership of George Donald Harrison redesigned the sound of the instrument as opus 150A in line with the "American Classic" and expanded it considerably. After the instrument, which suffered considerable damage from smoke and soot in a fire in the crossing area in 2001, remained silent for a long time, it was last extensively revised and revised in 2008 by the organ building company Quimby Pipe Organs Inc., Warrensburg (Missouri) restored. Since then, the organ has had 151 rows of pipes (101 independent registers as well as some transmissions and extracts) and 8,514 pipes . It is one of the most famous organs in the world.
Among the organists and cantors who were permanently employed here are well-known personalities such as Paul Halley (1977 to approx. 1980).
