Monday - churches

We also visited a couple churches on Monday that are close to Columbia: St. John the Divine and Riverside Church. St. John is a couple blocks south of the law school. This church has an organ demonstration on Mondays at 1:00 pm, so we went there first. The church is part of a larger complex (most of which we did not see), including a school and a garden. This interesting statue was open for viewing at the edge of the garden area:

Here is the front of St. John church:

It is hard to get a good picture of the entire church front (or really any large building in the city) because you can't back up far enough. There are other buildings and trees that get in the way. Here is my attempt:

The interior of the church was built in two stages. The rear (shown here-from the large arches back) was built after the front. They two parts are built in different styles, which is a little odd. I like the rear section a little better, but a large part of that was probably the purple hue caused by the sun+stained glass windows.

Here is a close-up of the rose window. I like this type of window- they are always so pretty.

The organ demonstration was pretty interesting. The organist told us a little about the church building in general before playing a couple songs. The number of pipes was a bit extreme (I think he said 800 or so), but it sounded good. In this picture, the organ is about 2/3 of the way down poking up from the wooden choir loft.
This shot shows the front of the building. Along with the central alter area, there are several small chapels sticking out from the center area. The day we were there, a noon service was held in one of these chapels. We arrived shortly after the service ended.

Here is a close-up of some of the stonework decorating the front of the church. Along both sides of the choir area, there was a row of figures. My favorite was Ghandi (shown here looking into the camera).

This shot was taken from the inside of one of the smaller chapels looking out towards the central altar area. I like the overlapping pillars and arches.

Here is the interior of one of the smaller chapels:

The other church we visited on Monday was Riverside church. It is located on the other side of Columbia, between campus and the Hudson River. It was interesting, but the tower was closed, which was a little disappointing. Still, it was a large beautiful building.

Brian, Dad, and Mom, heading for the entrance:

Riverside's large tower:

There were plenty of lovely stained-glass windows here too:

This large golden Jesus was above the entrance at the back of the sanctuary:

Here is the picture of the sanctuary:

Here is a close-up of the front altar area. All the tall skinny statues remind me of those dribble sandcastles people make at the beach.

The exit:Here is a view of the church from the other side. I had to step out into the street to get it because of the nice trees blocking my view otherwise.