Rockefeller Memorial Chapel

Description:

• To call the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel a chapel is false modesty, even for a Rockefeller. When the university first opened its doors, the students sang the following ditty:

  John D. Rockefeller, wonderful man is he

  Gives all his spare change to the U of C.

  John D. was a generous patron, indeed. He founded the university (in cooperation with the American Baptist Society), built the magnificent minicathedral that now bears his name, and shelled out an additional $35 million in donations over the course of his lifetime. Memorial Chapel, designed by Bertram Goodhue, an architect known for his ecclesiastical buildings -- including the Cadet Chapel at West Point and New York City's St. Thomas Church -- was dedicated in 1928.

  In keeping with the rest of the campus, which is patterned after Oxford, the chapel is reminiscent of English Gothic structures; however, it was built from limestone using modern construction techniques. Its most outstanding features are the circular stained-glass window high above the main altar (the windows, in general, are among the largest of any church or cathedral anywhere) and the world's second-largest carillon, which John D. Rockefeller, Jr., donated in 1932 in memory of his mother Laura. The chapel's organ is nearly as impressive, with four manuals, 126 stops, and more than 10,000 pipes. Choir concerts, carillon performances, and other musical programs run throughout the year, usually for a small donation. Allow a half-hour.

• © Frommer's 2012