Gray asked: What happened at St. John?

The story of the Cathedral and its re-building is an interesting one
;one that touched the hearts and the purse strings of a great number of
Americans;

some very  talented people had the inspiration and dedication  to give
themselves  and their careers to that project ;
 the two carvers (Pricipal) on the portal of Paradise were Master English
carver Simion Veritay whose gaunt bohemian features are represented in the
physical features of the Biblical characters he carved;
he is assisted by the French carver Jean Claude Marchioni; who I hired ; both
of them got "into " their work; and were working barefoot for the last year in
various eccentric atire befitting of their personality; which just completed
in August of this year.
They are both still in Manhattan;
Unknown to the public however is the last stone that was put on the Cathedral
was in 1992;
 for a period of 4 more years the Cathedral  with scaffold still in place
profiled itself in publication and in word as "still building "building when
it was only the carvers at the front who were actually working
In  my humble opinion (because I left under protest)  .This was enough to fool
the Democratic governor to give a  multi million dollar loan to a failed
"minority training program"..
that went down the murky hole in the high tech schemes of a questionable
developer that did not have the Cathedrals best interest at heart when he
joined and created Stoneworks in 91...
.the polite and respectable answer to the Cathedrals failure is lack of funds;
the sad result is after millions of dollars you can count on two hands the
number of minority graduates that maybe  still work in their related field;
the stoneyard now is empty and sad; the cathedral is in great need of
repair;it is a living workshop in stone and its related problems;
during the last 4 years of "stoneworks" the repair of the Cathedral was
negleted all together;
I believe a small restoration program could start their again; heck Columbia
school of preservation is right across the street; it could become the living
workshop for craftsmen and students; that was the dream  ..that many of us
had........MD
ps I recently was in New York ; and was told that Atlantic who had sold the
Cathedral an ungalvinized scaffold was taking it down from the tower; and
Polonia was to cover the tower in copper sheeting.....regards MD