Restoring St. Patrick's Cathedral

St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City isn't quite the classic example of Gothic architecture that it once was -- or rather, it is, but it's just not noticeable right now from its main Fifth Avenue entrance.

Scaffolding adorns the facade, as you can see from this photo from October. The cathedral is undergoing a multi-year restoration project to make repairs both inside and outside.

While the dramatic cathedral is now largely hidden from view from passersby, the inside remains just as lovely (despite a bit of its own scaffolding), and certainly just as popular.

St. Patrick's Cathedral ... and a Window Washer

Find the window washer!

Photos from the 50's

Take the subway to 50th St./Rockefeller Center and you can see a half-dozen major sites within a few blocks of each other. It was a beautiful day in New York on Saturday, so we visited a few yet again.

W. 53rd St: Museum of Modern Art

The museum recently opened an exhibit on prefabricated homes, which I found both interesting and oddly funny. In addition to scale models of homes inside the museum, a few life size homes were erected in an adjoining lot.

They weren't your typical subdivision houses. One seemed like a beach house. Another was something like 150-square-feet. Another had all windows for walls and I believe was solar-powered.




E. 51st St: St. Patrick's Cathedral

We tend to go to mass here when we're in the area Saturday evenings. The priest has a lovely Irish accent, although his sermon has to compete with my wandering eyes taking in the architecture. Around Christmas we could barely find a seat. Nowadays, however, you can walk in a few minutes late and still get a pew toward the side.

Across from St. Patrick's, on Fifth Avenue: Statue of Atlas

We had some time before church started, so we stopped by the statue of Atlas directly across the street. Although I'd known of the statue before, it became permanently etched into my brain since I started watching "30 Rock." The opening credits feature something like this: