is located between the doors, and six smaller figures are located on the tympanum above the doors. The exterior is made of pink Kingwood sandstone. Inside is a hall that can seat over a thousand people, with gallery seating above the main level. There are grisaille windows to the north and south, and wooden trusses on the ceiling, supporting the gable roof. The Synod Hall also contains a three-manual Skinner pipe organ. Plans for a diocesan building were considered as early as 1903. The current Synod Hall was announced in 1911, in preparation for the 1913 General Convention of the Episcopal Church. Cram's firm submitted plans for Synod Hall in March 1912, and it opened in October 1913 with the start of the convention. However, the hall was not completed until early 1914. After Bayard Cutting and J. P. Morgan made large donations toward the Synod Hall, the cathedral had to return some of the previous donations, as the two men had given more than enough funds to pay for the building. School The choir school building, now the Cathedral School of St. John the Divine, is located on the cathedral close's eastern border. The building is in the Collegiate Gothic style and is stories tall. The exterior contains gray schist cladding and limestone trim, with architectural features such as a gabled roof, dormers protruding from the roof, and Tudor-style arched openings. Inside, the building contained classrooms; gathering space for reception, dining; music rooms; a library; a gymnasium; a dormitory; and masters' and service rooms. The choir school was created in 1901 within the Town Building. A separate structure was first proposed in Walter Cook & Winthrop A. Welch's 1906 plan for the campus. In January 1910, Mary Eliza Blodgett (alternatively Mrs. J. Jarrett Blodgett) donated $25,000 toward the new school building's projected $150,000 cost, as a gift to honor her father John H. Sherwood. Blodgett later covered the rest of the choir school building's cost after no one else donated, while former choirboy Frederick G. Bourne provided a $500,000 endowment in 1914. Cram approved Cook & Welch's plan in January 1912 and filed construction plans that July, with work beginning that October. The school building was finished in September 1913. The choir school consisted of day school for 20 adult men and a boarding school for 40 choirboys who paid no tuition. It was turned into a boys' day