St John the Divine, New York

St John the Divine, New York tickets: which one to buy

There are two quite different ways to do this building and the choice matters. General admission gets you into the nave, which is enormous and worth an hour on its own. The vertical tour, sold separately and booked ahead, takes a small group up 124 feet inside the walls, through spiral stairs and along the buttresses to the roof, and it is the best architectural tour in New York; it sells out, particularly at weekends, and has an age minimum.

Highlights tours run on the ground and explain the stylistic break halfway through the building's history. The cathedral is in Morningside Heights, beside Columbia University, well north of the usual tourist ground and about half an hour by subway from midtown, which keeps the crowds thin. Concerts, the solstice performance and the seasonal installations are ticketed separately. Check the calendar before travelling, because large events close the nave to visitors entirely.

Visiting St John the Divine, New York: what to see

Work began in 1892 to a Byzantine and Romanesque design, and the crossing opened in 1909. Then the architects changed and so did the style, and the nave was completed in 1941 as Gothic Revival, which is why the building reads as two buildings meeting under the crossing arch. It has never been finished: the western towers stop short, the south transept is incomplete, and the crossing has a temporary covering where a spire was intended. At around 600 feet long it is the largest cathedral in the world by some measures, and the nave is tall enough that the scale is hard to register from photographs.

Seven chapels radiate behind the choir, each built for a different immigrant community. A fire in 2001 damaged the north transept and blackened the great organ, both since restored. Objects inside range from medieval to contemporary, including a triptych by Keith Haring finished weeks before his death, and a poets' corner in the nave floor. The stonemasons trained on site in the 1980s were local apprentices, and their unfinished blocks still sit in the yard beside the south transept. Admission includes a printed guide that maps the chapels by the community that paid for each one.

St John the Divine, New York opening hours and the best time to go

Two dates are famous. On the feast of Saint Francis in early October, the blessing of the animals brings a procession of livestock up the nave, from dogs and parrots to a camel and an elephant, and the church is packed; tickets go early. The winter solstice concert in December has run for decades and fills the building with music written for its eleven-second reverberation.

Beyond those, weekday mornings are the quietest and the light through the great rose window is best in the afternoon. The close outside has gardens, a peacock or three that live there permanently, and a stonemasons' yard left from the building campaign. Columbia's campus is two blocks away and Harlem begins just north, so the cathedral fits into an uptown day rather than a midtown one. Allow an hour for the nave and ninety minutes more if you climb.