Cathedral of St John the Divine

This is the largest place of worship in the US – and it’s not done yet. When it’s finally completed, the 601ft-long Episcopal cathedral will rank as the third-largest church in the world (after St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and Our Lady of Peace at Yamoussoukro in Côte d’Ivoire). Design highlights include the Great Rose Window, the largest stained-glass window in the country, and the Great Organ, which dates from 1911 and was due to be returned and ready for playing after being silenced by smoke damage during a devastating church fire in 2001. At this writing, a five-year cleaning and restoration project had just been completed, so you can expect to see this beauty and its 8035 pipes functioning if you visit during a service.

To pay for its unending construction and repair projects, the cathedral has recently entered into some controversial deals with various devils – otherwise known as developers. One project involves working with Columbia University, which holds an option to lease and develop an academic building on the north site of the cathedral’s 11.3-acre campus. The other partnership is with AvalonBay Communities, a condominium developer with ubiquitous projects in regions across the country. It recently entered into a 99-year lease with the cathedral, and has begun constructing various residential buildings on the south side of the property.

Controversies aside, St John the Divine is a flourishing place of worship and community activity. Holiday concerts, lectures and memorial services for famous New Yorkers take place here. Two quirky services worth seeing are the annual Blessing of the Animals, a pilgrimage for pet owners that’s held on the first Sunday of October, and the Blessing of the Bikes, on May 1, which draws helmeted folks with clunkers, sleek 10-speeds and mountain bikes. There’s a Poet’s Corner to the left of the front entrance but, unlike at Westminster Abbey in London, no one is actually buried here. Also see the altar designed and built by the late Keith Haring, a popular artist in the 1980s pop-art world.

Other sights are the whimsical Children’s Sculpture Garden on the south side, and the Biblical Garden, containing plants that are historically correct for the era, out back. An intriguing Ecology Trail wends its way through the cathedral and its grounds, tracing the creation cycles (birth, life, death and rebirth) from a multicultural perspective. Cathedral Tours are offered at 11am and 1pm Saturday and at 1pm on Sunday; vertical tours, which take you on a steep climb to the top of the Cathedral (for which you are advised to bring your own flashlight), are at noon and 2pm on Saturday.