Cathedral restoration heads toward completion

A labyrinth of scaffolding fills Albany's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Arti-sans and workers scramble up and down to spend hours painstakingly re-plastering, painting and restoring the walls, ceiling, columns, moldings and ornamentation.

The work is building toward completion next year - if a fundraising appeal is successful in securing the $3.5 million still needed to complete the interior renovation.

Diocesan officials have been showcasing the work that has been finished so far; in the next few weeks, a large mailing will be going out to a targeted list of potential benefactors, friends of the Cathedral and people especially interested in historic preservation.

Spring 2010 is the anticipated time to unveil the renovation. Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, who is looking forward to the homecoming, told The Evangelist: "The Cathedral is the mother church of the Diocese. It will be nice to come back home and be in a place that will be much safer, much brighter, and much more comfortable. And it will enable people to enjoy the various facets of this building which sometimes got lost with the deterioration from those years, and now the full luster of the Cathedral will come to the fore."

The Albany landmark is the oldest cathedral in New York State and the oldest cathedral in the nation constructed in the neo-gothic style. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. It also serves as the resting place for all but one of the Diocese's bishops.

List of changes
Here's what to expect when the latest renovations are unveiled:

• a worship space with an altar platform extended into the nave to improve visibility and help people feel more a part of liturgies;

• a baptismal font relocated near the main entrance in keeping with contemporary liturgical norms; • comfortable, fixed pews refashioned from the original walnut pews, with deeper seats and angled backs (flexible seating is part of the plan);

• newly-painted walls and ceiling and detailing researched to be consistent with the historic color palette;

• a floor of Tennessee marble recycled from the old stone, with new stone added;

• restored original light fixtures from 1917 and new energy-efficient halogen lights to replace the incandescent ones, with the lighting system digitally controlled to maximize energy savings and scenic effects;

• new wiring throughout; and

• new insulation on pipes and ductwork, in the attic and in various air gaps to further the energy savings.

The Cathedral's altar is also getting a makeover. Rev. William Pape, Cathedral rector, said it is being enlarged and reshaped into a cube. The original altar had a brass piece on the front made in France in 1852, featuring statues of Christ the Good Shepherd flanked by Mary and Joseph, plus Peter and Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, St. Patrick and St. Ambrose.

However, when the more ornate altar was retooled and moved forward in the sanctuary in 1982 to replace the simple wooden altar used after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, "John the Evangelist never made it," Father Pape remarked. "He went into storage."

Father Pape noted that the refashioned altar will not only restore St. John the Evangelist to the frontal piece, but also will add a holy young Native American woman of local origin, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha. Blessed Kateri is being sculpted by award-winning artist Alex-ander Tylevich of St. Paul, Minn.

More to come
Although there will be a sense of completion when the interior renovation is finished and the Cathedral reopens to the public, this will not be the case for the exterior.

In the next few months, a new staircase will be installed at the Cathedral's main entrance and some repairs and retooling of the masonry will be done on the east facade and the south tower. However, at this time only 45 percent of the exterior is restored.

"The goal is eventually to replace all the stones on the exterior," Father Pape explained. "But this can be done only as the money becomes available."

He added: "My hope is that the Cathedral will always have enough funds to assure it will never again lapse into a state of disrepair."

Bishop Hubbard said of the ongoing renovations that "a cathedral is always in the process of renewal, just as is the Church. Even when the interior is done, the work will never be finished. It will always be a work in progress."

(11-19-09)