When I got to St Patrick’s Cathedral – the highlight of Fifth Avenue’s skyline – tonight, I was disappointed to see the place was filled with scaffolding. Ugh. How was I supposed to see this famous 19th century church in all its glory?

But instead of whining, I realized that this was an entirely new experience. When I’ve been to grand buildings over the past few months – from St Paul’s, to St John the Divine to Grand Central Station – I’ve read about massive restoration projects and wondered where on earth they’d find ladders tall enough. And finally, I could see it in action. Every cloud etc etc

So I donned my best attitude (which was necessary because the place was crammed with tourists) and marveled at the statues, artwork and architecture that was visible between the scaffolding and dust sheets. Work is being carried out to preserve the cathedral and address issues like cracked windows, dulled stained-glass windows and crumbling plaster. The organ, pews, windows, stonework and ceiling plaster are all being treated – and the cathedral also hopes to get to work on new heating systems and the garden once they’ve raised enough funds (it’ll cost $175 million in total, eek).

Even though the place was filled with scaffolding, I could still get a good sense of it – and I particularly appreciated the descriptions of the saint statues and what the men or women had done in their lives. The altar was dotted with poinsettias and candles – just beautiful.

Unfortunately last week I went to St Paul’s. And while I can appreciate the beauty of St Pat’s, I just couldn’t be so blown away after seeing such a stunner in London. Nothing can compare to St Paul’s height or grandeur. Sorry, St Pat’s.

Still, this really was worth a visit and it’s one of the few places that’s open late every night (until 8.30pm), which I appreciated because I rarely make tourist hotspots due to my work hours. I’ll definitely have to head back once that scaffolding has been put away.

P.s. Happy New Year! I have two new year’s posts to pop up and I’ll get to them later today 🙂 Hope you had fantastic celebrations and lots of luck for 2014 – thank you for reading Today’s the Day I during 2013!