New York / Toronto: December 19, 2015; vertical tour of Cathedral Church of St. John

The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, at 112th St and Amsterdam Ave. is one seriously bizarre church.  Beautiful, but bizarre, in the best way.

The church is large... vast.  Its ceiling feels impossibly high when inside.

(As a side note, I also, on the spot, decided to start experimenting with black and white photography.  I changed the setting on my camera to black and white, but when I uploaded them to Apple Photos, they were in colour.  They even started as black and white, and when I went back, they were in colour.  I'm shooting RAW files instead of jpg, which I think can explain it....  I'll have to look at Google.  I'm confused.  So, to recap, I composed and took the shots thinking black and white, and they were in black and white in my camera, but show up in colour on my computer but I converted them back to black and white in the Photos program on my computer, because that's what I envisioned).

[Click on photos to enlarge.]

Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. New York City.  December 18, 2015.  The church is incredibly high-ceilinged.

Another shot:

Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.  New York City.  December 18, 2015.  

I joined something called the vertical tour, which promised a lot of stair climbing and a great view of Manhattan.  I just wanted to go to the high areas in the church.  You can see in the photo above (and the detail in colour below), the two little walk ways attached to some of the columns.  One is standard stone walkway looking, the other above it is round.  I went up there!!

Detail showing where we were allowed to walk on the vertical tour at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.  December 18, 2015.  We went to the walkway area and then to the top of the arch, at that round window like area.

As I should have learned by now, but forgot until I went on the tour, certain heights give me a pit in my stomach.  It's something in the lizard part of my brain.  It doesn't make sense, really.   I live 21 storeys up and have no problem.  As I type this, I'm beside my windows.  I can look out onto the traffic and I'm fine.  

I went, in September, to One World Trade Center and had no problem.

About 100 feet up though, with a guard rail, I feel queasy.  

Fun tour, aside from that.  

View from the walkway, looking down.  Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.  New York City.  December 18, 2015.  At this point, I was low to the floor of the walkway, keeping a low centre of gravity, and sticking my camera over the edge.  Scary.

Then we went higher.

The view looking down from the round window-like top of the arch.  This is much too high without at least a solid glass wall, and just not a hip-high circular opening.  Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.  New York City.  December 18, 2015.

Then we went even higher, above the ceiling.

This is above the ceiling, showing what's supporting the ceiling.  So this is the area between the ceiling and the roof.  Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.  New York City.   December 18, 2015.

And then outside.

A view of Manhattan from the roof of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.  New York City.  December 18, 2015.   The Church is at 112th St.  You can see the Empire State Building in the distance, which is downtown at 34th St.

That tour was well-worth the money, one of my highlights of my trip.   It gives background on the building and access to areas not otherwise accessible.  T

he Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine is seriously weird.  More about that tomorrow.