Erection of steel supported slate roof

Mr. Ditmars immediately assumed control of the project and ordered the removal of all twenty-four pillars. Ditmars' fears concern ing the stability of the columns were confirmed when excavations proved that little attention had been paid to sub-surface preparation. Ditmars directed that the rock bed be leveled and the column foundations reconstructed, whereupon twenty-two of the original pillars were reset. Ditmars' decision to drop the two remaining pillars allowed him to eliminate the clerestory wall connecting the nave and the chancel, thus opening the transept the full one hundred sixty-five feet. As the arches and clerestory began to rise in the latter half of 1910, extra reinforcement was provided in the form of steel girders at the clerestory level down either side of the nave and around the ambulatory.