National Cathedral sustained 'mind boggling' damage in earthquake

The Hill ^ | 08/24/11 | Alicia M. Cohn

[markomalley]

The Washington National Cathedral sustained significant damage in the earthquake that hit D.C. on Tuesday afternoon.

Damage included arch displacement, cracking, falling limestone and rotating pinnacles on the Cathedral's neogothic towers.

National Cathedral Head Mason Joe Alonso estimated a piece weighing about 3,000 pounds toppled from the central tower. He called the damage to that section of the Cathedral "mind boggling."

A link to video of Alonso detailing the damage was tweeted by the National Cathedral on Wednesday morning.

"A lot of what fell, we're fortunate that it fell in toward the roof and not out toward the streets," Alonso said in the video.

National Cathedral staff tweeted out information about damage sustained by the historic building on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning following the 5.8 magnitude earthquake felt across a large portion of the East Coast on Tuesday afternoon.

One of the first questions answered through Twitter may have brought a sigh of relief to fans of the sci-fi trilogy Star Wars. "We've checked, and Darth Vader appears to be okay," staff tweeted.

The Star Wars villain is one of the many gargoyles included on the northwest tower of the Cathedral.

The National Cathedral is the fourth tallest structure in Washington, D.C. Its foundation was laid in 1907.

[markomalley]

Check original for links.

[Diogenesis]

pRes_ _ent Hussein reminds us that
there are mosques overseas to rebuild FIRST.

[the invisib1e hand]

ahem.

[tbpiper]

'mind boggling' damage

Some minds are easily boggled.

[Rennes Templar]

A Darth Vader gargoyle? Am I missing something?

[Doulos1]

I think the building is misnamed. We have no national cathedral because we have no national religion. It is the Roman Catholic cathedral in nation’s capital.

[thackney]

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/08/what-really-happened-national-cathedral-quake/41644/">http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/08/what-really-happened-national-cathedral-quake/41644/

[markomalley]

It is the Roman Catholic cathedral in nation’s capital.

Wrong.

It is the Episcopal cathedral.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral is the Cathedral of St Matthew, located in Georgetown.

[So Cal Rocket]

[muawiyah]

DC has a couple of major Catholic buildings. The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception springs to mind ~ it's a big multi-ethnic Catholic church with a very large basement and main nave full of all sorts of chapels and so forth. If you ever wanted to see what classical Christian architecture was about here it is ALL in one place ~ Romanesque, Gothic, Greco-Roman, Orthodox, Polish, German, English, French, Spanish ~ and others ~ there should be a book on this in the giftshop.

There's also the Catholic Cathedral in downtown DC. It's much less imposing but can hold very large crowds. There's some universities with Catholic affiliation, European style stonework and so on.

Finally, there's the National Cathedral which begun as an Episcopal Church structure and is now, as I understand it, an independent nonprofit charity that has as its purpose the maintenance of the National Cathedral.

So far it hasn't got anything to do with the Catholic Church.

[JaxLaxDad]

A Darth Vader gargoyle? Am I missing something?

...Gorgeous building, completed late 70’s?, has stone gargoyles high around outside of building.
They put in one resembling the Star Wars character, which is a hit with the kid tourists.

[PUGACHEV]

I read that, for whatever reason, the builders of the Washington Cathedral shunned the use of steel frames and employed medieval architectural techniques instead. I suppose it's too bad that medieval cathedral builders didn't have access to inflatable vinyl churches like I just saw on another thread. This would have saved them a lot of trouble and expense, as well as those who wanted to copy them later.

[markomalley]

Cathedral of St Matthew the Apostle (Catholic):

National Cathedral (Episcopal):

[shield]

The National Cathedral is the fourth tallest structure in Washington, D.C. Its foundation was laid in 1907.

The Cathedral was also built on the highest elevation in that area.

[Campion]

It is the Roman Catholic cathedral in nation’s capital.

Nope. Episcopalian. The Catholic cathedral in DC is St. Matthew's.

[Moose Burger]

Bonus: Darth Vader Grotesque

A contest for kids in the 80's: "Four winning designs were chosen: a raccoon, a girl with pigtails and braces, a man with large teeth and an umbrella, and lastly, Darth Vader."

[End Times Sentinel]

there are mosques overseas to rebuild FIRST.

Don't short sell the man, Diogenesis.

Rip down the spires, replace them with minarets, replace the bells with a little hutch for the imam to stand on to call for prayers, and destroy those offensive crosses.

You've got a first class mosque fit for The One to take Michelle and the kids to for prayers (separate of course) or for a disenfranchised visa overstay from Yemen to take a class on building a nail bomb.

Good times...

[Explorer89]

Darth is kind of looking like Homer Simpson, there.

[markomalley]

A Darth Vader gargoyle? Am I missing something?

If memory serves, they used to have stone cutting workshops where people could cut their own gargoyle and potentially have it mounted (I remember seeing those classes listed in some of the local "things to do" lists in the paper about 10 years ago or so).

There are 112 gargoyles total. See here to look at all 112.

[madprof98]

In 1931, Stalin ordered the destruction of Moscow's magnificent Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the largest Orthodox church in the world, in order to build a palace dedicated to the memory of Lenin. Though it was never built (the site became a municipal swimming pool), this may prove an inspiration to our current regime. On the other hand, the Episcopalians who run the present building seem perfectly happy to sprinkle holy water on whatever godless politicians troop through it, so perhaps just patching it up will do the trick.