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The Cathedral of St. John the Divine (Protestant Episcopal) is building on Cathedral Heights, a name which has been given to the southern end of Morningside Heights, between Morningside Park and Amsterdam avenue. The site, which embraces three city blocks, from troth to 113th streets, cost $850,000. The cornerstone was laid in 1892; the whole structure will be built in from forty to fifty years, at an estimated cost of $6,000,000. The architects are Heins & La Farge.
The exterior length is 520 feet, width of front 172 feet, across the transepts 290 feet. Of the seven towers, the four on the sides are 158 feet, the two in front 284 feet, and the central tower will rise 445 feet from floor to top of cross. The nave is 18o feet long, the chancel vault 115 feet high. Thus it is seen that the Cathedral surpasses any other ecclesiastical edifice in America, and in its dignity of design, grandeur of proportions and superb situation, takes rank with the great cathedrals of the Old World.
At the suggestion of Bishop Potter, there have been planned, surrounding the Choir, seven Chapels of Tongues, in which Sabbath services will be held in seven different languages. The German Chapel will be the first one built.
A feature of the Choir is the eight pillars surrounding the three sides of the altar; these are mammoth monoliths of polished Maine granite, each one 54 feet 6 inches high and 6 feet in diameter, and weighing 120 tons. These are building stones surpassed only by the 6o-foot columns in the Cathedral of St. Isaac in St. Petersburg.
Opposite the Cathedral grounds on 113th street is ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL, Protestant Episcopal, one of the noble institutions of the city.
The Viaduct at 155th street, four-fifths mile long, which connects Washington Heights, by way of the Central Bridge, with Jerome avenue,and ranks as one of the greatest of the engineering works of its class.
Hispanic Society of America.—The library and museum of the Hispanic Society of America is in Audubon Park, 156th street, near Broadway. The library, art collection and historical objects were gath¬ered by Archer M. Huntington, who endowed the Hispanic Society and gave the land upon which the museum stands. The society's purpose is to make the library and museum useful to students and literary men. The society was founded by Mr. Huntington for the purpose of bringing the people of the United States who are interested in Spanish history, art and literature into closer relations with the Spanish and Portuguese people and those of the same blood in South America. Mr. Huntington spent more than eighteen years making the collections, and they are the largest of their kind in this country and among the most important in the world.
The institution is open to the public. Among the objects in the museum interesting to students of Hispanic subjects is a pair of bronze Arabic doors, which flank the main entrance. These doors, which came from a Cairo mosque, were built by a Mameluke general in 1381. The museum contains examples of pottery dating from the fifth century before Christ to the present time, and also includes silver, medals, coins and textiles, beside some sixteenth century carvings in wood, marble and ironwork. Spanish-America is also historically and artistically represented. There are more than fifty thousand volumes in the library, on ancient and modern Spanish and Portuguese subjects. The Hispanic Society of America is an endowed society, its members paying no dues. Its members are scattered all over the world, where they are constantly on the lookout for some available addition to the library or museum.
The Jumel Mansion, a fine example of Colonial architecture, at 16oth street, near Amsterdam avenue, is the most famous historic house on Manhattan Island. It was built in 1763 by Roger Morris, the husband of that Mary Philipse, for whose hand the young Virginia Colonel, George Washington, is said to have been an unsuccessful suitor. When the Revolutionary War began, Roger Morris, who had resigned a Lieutenant-Colonelcy in the British Army, and who was then a member of the King's Council for the Colonies, fled the country, taking ship for England in May, 1775. Mrs. Morris remained in possession of the Mansion and of her town house at the corner of Stone street and White Hall. General Washington took the Mansion for his headquarters on his retreat from New York and occupied it for thirty-six days.
The great salon in the extension was his Council Chamber and the rear room above was his bedroom. The house fell into the hands of the British with the capture of Fort Washington, and was the headquarters of General Sir Henry Clinton in the summer of 1777, and of Lieutenant-General Baron von Knyphausen in 1778. After the war it was a tavern on the Albany stage road, the first stopping place out of New York, where the first change of horses was made. The house was then known as Calumet Hall.
It was a farm house in 1790, when General Washington gave a dinner in the old house to his Cabinet officers and their ladies. Among his guests were Alexander Hamilton and Mrs. Hamilton, John Adams and Abigail Adams, his wife, General and Mrs. Knox, Thomas Jefferson and Mrs. Tobias Leer. The estate, comprising the Mansion and thirty-six acres of land, were bought in 1810 by Stephen Jumel, a rich French merchant, from Leonard Parkinson, for a little less than $10,000. M. Jumel was an ardent admirer of Washington, and he devoted his money and his energy to restoring the house to what it had been in Washington's time. He had the old green Colonial paper reproduced in France and restored to the walls of the Council Chamber, where it hung altogether for 120 years. In 1815 he went to France in his own ship, the "Eliza," named after his wife, who accompanied him, with the purpose of bringing back Napoleon to the house that had sheltered Washington. The Emperor was unable to accept the hospitality of M. Jumel, but he gave to the Jumels his traveling carriage and his campaigning trunk.
The Egyptian Cyprus trees, now standing at the corner of St. Nicholas avenue and 159th street, which had just been given to Napoleon by the Khedive of Egypt, were sent to America by M. Jumel in 1815. After the death of her husband, Madame Jumel married Aaron Burr, but soon divorced him. She was a famous his¬torical character, who used to drive in a coach and four with postillions. She entertained such famous guests as Lafayette, Louis Napoleon, Joseph Bonaparte and Jerome Bonaparte. She died in 1865. The house is owned by the city, and with the grounds is included in the park system. It is in the care of the Washington Headquarters' Association of the Daughters of the American Revolution and contains a museum of Revolutionary relics. It is open to visitors on every day in the year from 9 o'clock A. M. to 5 P. M. The nearest station on the Subway is at 157th street and Broadway, and by the Elevated at 155th street.
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