“VOICES OF THE STONES: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Unfinished Tower of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine”
Presented by Robert F. Rodriguez, photojournalist and artist in residence at the Cathedral
Co-sponsored by the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group and the Columbus Amsterdam BID.

Register HERE for this free zoom presentation

Forty years ago, the Cathedral of St John the Divine undertook a major project to build its long overdue towers. Despite that effort, they were never completed – thus the church’s nickname, St. John the Unfinished.

What most people don’t realize is that the partially built south tower is host to an extraordinary array of exquisite stone sculptures – not readily visible from street level.

Via a series of never-before-seen photographs, Voices of the Stones offers a unique, up-close-and-personal look at the wondrous, intricate and often humorous carvings, traces them back to the dedicated men and women stone carvers who created them, and reveals some “secret” messages they carved into their limestone creations.

The presenter: As artist in residence at the Cathedral, photojournalist Robert F. Rodriguez spent more than 10 years documenting all facets of the construction work involved in building the towers. A photographer and photo editor at Gannett Newspapers for 38 years and The Daily Mail for ten, he was also the photographer for the book on local Upper West Side history, Heaven on the Hudson: Mansions, Monuments and Marvels of Riverside Park, and the upcoming Fabulous Fountains of New York, both written by Stephanie Azzarone. His series of blogs about the Cathedral’s architecture may be found at https://divinestone.org/.