Spire Envy

photo from here.

It's a proud day for the city of Charleston, and the Catholic citizenry in particular.

The Holy City's sky line just became holier. One hundred years in the making, and it finally happened, the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Charleston has been "completed" with the addition of the church's steeple. You can see a bloggy time line of the steeple construction and installation at the Cathedral Restoration website, along with additional pictures, and video of each step in the process.

The new steeple is gorgeous, Its design is a marriage of traditional concepts with modern design in order to keep the whole structure safe in case of hurricanes and earthquakes - two natural disasters that Charleston is intimately familiar with. The church now stands at 167 ft. tall.

According to The Post and Courier:

That's less than 20 feet below the tip of St. Michael's Church spire just down Broad Street and about 30 feet lower than St. Philip's Church -- the other tall landmark in the oldest part of downtown Charleston.

Uh oh, think I'm suffering from spire envy. Actually in this case, it's not so much about the height, no this isn't a euphemistic joke... it's more about the proportions of the copper structure to the brownstone belfry/tower. It's most apparent in the above photo with St. Michaels in the background. I'm hoping that it's just a camera trick, from looking at photos from the restoration site, it may be a camera trick... or it could be the shiny newness of the copper structure, perhaps it needs to oxidize to a nice green - which could take 20 years.

But, I'm happy for our see church, and the Holy city, and i'm sure that it'll grow on me beyond the appreciation for the individual structure itself.

The Post and Courier has more photos here.