Old St. Patrick's Rectory -- No. 263 Mulberry Street

photo by Alice Lum

The Catholic Church in Manhattan got off to a rocky start.  During British rule Catholic worship was prohibited by law.  Then, in 1785, almost immediately after the British left, St. Peter’s Church was founded and a Georgian-style church was built on Barclay Street—three years before the Washington took office.

The Roman Catholic population continued to grow and on April 8, 1808 the diocese of New York was created (covering all of New York State, New Jersey, and several Long Island counties).  Within the year French-born architect Joseph-Francois Mangin was commissioned to design the first Catholic cathedral in American—St. Patrick’s.  The architect had recently completed the design of City Hall in conjunction with John McComb, Jr.  The completed church on Mulberry Street near the corner of Prince Street was dedicated six years later on May 14, 1815.

But the presence of a cathedral and a bishop did not mean that Catholics were warmly accepted.  In 1834 the Board of Trustees resolved “that a wall shall be built around the Cathedral and churchyard" to protect both the graveyard and the church from rioters bent on destruction.  The decision proved to be wise move.  Ten years later the church was besieged by a violent mob of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish rabble intent on torching the cathedral.  The bishop at the time was the dynamic 47-year old John Joseph Hughes. 

He assembled parishioners and members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians behind the wall.  The defenders punched holes in the wall for their muskets and fought back the mob which was chanting “paddies of the Pope.”  Although the Catholics held off the rabble; several of the fine windows of the church were smashed in the melee.  Bishop Hughes fired off a letter to Mayor James Harper threatening “Should one Catholic come to harm, or should one Catholic business be molested, we shall turn this city into a second Moscow," referring to Napoleon's somewhat recent siege of that city.

The Irish-born Hughes had been made bishop in 1842, succeeding John Dubois.  It was apparently during his term that the imposing Rectory was constructed directly across from the Cathedral.  Five bays wide, the handsome Greek Revival structure encompassed two wide building lots.  Constructed of red brick with brownstone trim, it was home not only to the bishop; but to the parish priests—as many of seven at some times. 

John J. Hughes was elevated to Archbishop when New York was made an Archdiocese by Pope Pius IX in 1850.  At the time St. Patrick’s Cathedral was the largest church in Manhattan.  But Hughes had bigger plans.  In 1852 the Archdiocese purchased the block of land far north on Fifth Avenue at 50^th Street.  The plot was so far removed from the established city that critics called the project “Hughes’ Folly.”  The cornerstone was laid on August 15, 1858 and the immense white marble cathedral began rising.

Then, in 1861, Civil War broke out.  One by one construction workers marched off to war until eventually work on the Cathedral stopped completely.  Three years later Archbishop John Hughes died, never to see his magnificent church completed.

John Cardinal McCloskey moved into the Rectory as the new Archbishop.  Although the new St. Patrick’s Cathedral would not be officially dedicated until 1879; Archbishop McCloskey left the old Mulberry Street rectory by 1875 and took up residence in the Archbishop’s mansion at No. 218 Madison Avenue.  It was there, on March 16, 1875, that he received the telegram informing him that he had been elevated to cardinal—the first in America.

A month later, John McCloskey received his cardinal’s hat in the parlor of the old Rectory.  Later he would repeat the ceremony across the street in the old Cathedral. 

The Rectory in 1914 looked exactly as it does today -- The Catholic church in the United States of America, 1914 (copyright expired)

After the doors to the new Cathedral opened in 1879, the old Mulberry Street Cathedral became a parish church on May 25.  By now Father John F. Kearney had lived in the Rectory for 13 years.  Kearney was born on Broome Street in 1839.  As work had ground to a stop on the new Cathedral during the war, Kearney was studying for the priesthood in Emmittsburg, Maryland.   He became an assistant priest in the Old Cathedral in 1864—two years before the church burned nearly to the ground.  (It was possibly during the reconstruction of the old cathedral that the handsome mansard roof was added to the old Greek Revival Rectory.)

Now, the Very Rev. William Quinn who had been vicar-general at the old Cathedral moved to the new St. Patrick’s; leaving Father Kearney as rector of the Mulberry Street church.  The priest took over the parish at a time of noticeable change in the neighborhood.  While the original parishioners in the cathedral had been almost exclusively Irish; now waves of Italian immigrants filled the streets. 

Later Father Kearney would remember “The changes in population came on gradually, but I should say that in 1873 the first large Italian immigration began.  There had been hard times in Italy and thousands came over here in search of work.  Again in 1882 there was an especially large number of them.”  Because he spoke Italian, Father Kearney was able to reach out to the Italian Catholic population. 

 

The Victorian mansard was possibly added during the reconstruction of the damaged Cathedral.  photo by Alice Lum

In the first years of the 20^th century New York City was plagued with anarchist terrorists, including the Black Hand.  The Italian group was responsible for assassinations, extortion and bombings.  Police Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino was working in Italy in 1909 when he was gunned down by the Black Hand.  His body was returned to New York and his funeral took place in Old St. Patrick’s.

As the day of the ceremony neared, Father Kearney received a letter at the Rectory.  It was from the Black Hand and threatened to blow up the church.  According to The New York Times, “He read the letter and then calmly said, “If the church goes—I go with it.”

By 1916, as he celebrated 50 years of living in the Rectory and serving old St. Patrick’s, Kearney held the title of Monsignor.  For another seven years he would crisscross Mulberry Street, going back and forth from the Rectory to the old cathedral.  Then on the evening of April 11, 1923 the Right Rev. Mgr. John F. Kearney called into his room the four parish priests who shared the Rectory.  The following day The New York Times reported “To them he gave his blessing, and a few minutes later he died.”

An estimated 10,000 mourners were present at Mgr. Kearney’s funeral.

The former Bishop’s residence and Rectory drew little attention to itself over the years.  In May 1939 when Old St. Patrick’s celebrated its 130^th Anniversary, a “colorful procession” started at the Rectory and wound around the streets before returning to the old church.  And in 1950 Cardinal Francis Joseph Spellman chose the Rectory to despair over the failure of continued peace after the end of World War II.

“Entrusted with this peace and the future of our youth we have once again failed ourselves and them—beguiled, deceived, betrayed, defeated by Communists, fellow travelers, apathetic and guileful people and public servants.”

photo by Alice Lum

Today the dignified old structure, still used as the Old St. Patrick’s Rectory, is lovingly maintained and beautifully intact.

St. Patrick's Cathedral -- Fifth Avenue at 50th Street

The newly-finished, gleaming white marble Cathedral sat next to a yet-undeveloped plot.  Across Fifth Avenue is the lawn of a mansion -- photo Library of Congress

James Renwick, Jr. was 25 years old when he received the commission to design Grace Church in 1843.  An engineer, he had no training as an architect and had, to date, designed only a fountain in Bowling Green.  Renwick did not disappoint, however.  Completed in 1846, Grace Church was a masterpiece–the first major Gothic Revival style structure in the United States. 

Within the year he had designed the Smithsonian Institution Building in Washington, often referred to as the Renwick Castle.   The architect would, for the rest of his life, be a busy man.  But he would hold none of his designs in greater importance than St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

The first Archbishop of New York, John Hughes, summoned Renwick in 1853 to start plans for a replacement to the Cathedral on Mott Street which had been completed in 1815.  Although the existing St. Patrick’s Cathedral was the largest church in the city, the Archbishop yearned for a more magnificent church.

The land Hughes had selected for the site, on Fifth Avenue between 50^th and 51^st Streets, was well north of the established city, resulting in skeptics calling it “Hughes’ Folly.”  Renwick went to work on the drawings which, according to Archbishop John Murphy Farley’s 1908 history of the cathedral, “were changed several times until 1858, when they were definitely agreed upon.”

With the plans approved, the Archbishop presented Renwick and his assisting architect William Rodrique (who coincidentally or not married Hugh’s sister Margaret) with contracts.  Each would receive $2,500 a year for eight years and the Archbishop had the right to suspend or discontinue the building at will.  It was a highly unusual arrangement, although financially advantageous for Renwick.

The plans that were “definitely agreed upon” were for a soaring, white marble Gothic Revival style structure that would compete with the great medieval structures of Europe.  The cost of construction was fixed with the Hall and Joyce Company, the builders, at $850,000 and a contract was signed on March 5, 1859 with the stipulation that the construction would be finished on or before January 1, 1867.

The cornerstone had been laid on August 15, 1858, half a year before the contracts were finalized.  The immense structure rose steadily filling the Fifth Avenue block towards Madison Avenue.  Then, in 1861, the Civil War broke out.  As the conflict worsened, more and more of the men of New York abandoned their jobs to fight for the Union.  Eventually work on the cathedral stopped completely.

Archbishop Hughes would not live to see his magnificent Cathedral rise above Fifth Avenue.  He died in 1864, succeeded by Bishop John McCloskey who would take up the project as construction commenced again after the war.  Two decades after it was begun, St. Patrick’s Cathedral was dedicated on May 25, 1879. 

Harper's Weekly featured Archbishop Hughs' funeral in the unfinished Cathedral in 1864.

The new cathedral had a seating capacity of 18,000 and every seat was filled at 10:00 when McCloskey, now a Cardinal, and an entourage of bishops and priests processed up the aisle.  One hundred and twenty five policemen were positioned around the building to keep order.  A local newspaper described it as “the noblest temple ever raised in any land to the memory of Saint Patrick, and as the glory of Catholic America.”

The Cathedral as depicted in an 1890 print -- Library of Congress

The marble church stretched 332 feet to the east, sitting on a base course of Maine granite.  Although the cathedral was officially opened, its soaring spires–rising 330 feet above the avenue--would not be completed until October 1888. 

In 1900, construction was started on the Lady Chapel.  Designed by Charles T. Mathews, it was completed in 1908 and a year later the first of the chapel’s stained glass windows was installed.  It would be 25 years before the windows were completed. 

The original estimate of construction fell sorely short.  The spires alone cost $200,000 and by the time the Lady Chapel was completed Archbishop Farley estimated the cost at $4 million.

Generally hailed as a masterpiece of design, the cathedral was not adored by everyone.  Art and architecture critic Helen W. Henderson was known to be brutally frank in her sometimes snobbish opinions.

 The 75 stained glass windows were created, for the most part, in the studios of Nicholas Lotin at Chartes and of Henry Ely at Nantes.  Henderson complained:

The modern French and Roman windows, which to the eye of the later criticism, impair the beauty of the simple interior, were considered something most desirable in their day, and their completion was hastened in order that they might be shown at the Centennial Exhibition, of 1876, where they were a feature much admired.

She admitted that the St. Patrick window–donated by Renwick–“has at least an antiquarian interest.”  In the lower panel of that window is a depiction of Renwick presenting the plans of the cathedral to Cardinal McCloskey.   She found the priceless windows of the Lady Chapel the “only windows of aesthetic interest in the church.”

Potted trees line the sidewalk as a well-dressed crowd watches the procession into the Cathedral for its consecration in 1911 -- Library of Congress

The cathedral was the scene of a major scare when, on St. Patrick’s Day 1918, a crowd of thousands was assembled awaiting the parade.  Everyone remembered the bomb that had been discovered within the church on March 2, 1915 and anarchism was a constant threat.  On that day, the throng was suddenly panicked by an enormous chunk of a stone spire that broke loose.  The largest piece crashed through the roof, breaking through the organ loft inside.  Outside, large stone fragments showered down on the masses.

“The crash and roar of the big missile caused fear that the whole great structure had been dynamited and might topple into the street,” reported The New York Times.  As the dignitaries in the reviewing stand stampeded to get away, Congressman Thomas F. Smith suffered a broken wrist as he was knocked to the ground.

The 1915 bomb would not be the last of the threats to the Cathedral.  In January 1951 a letter was received announcing that a bomb would be set off at a Sunday mass.  And between December 1951 and July 1952 there would be five more bomb threats.  On July 12, a deep-voiced male voice ordered the Rev. Edward Connors “get them out,” referring to worshipers in the cathedral.  Thirty minutes later he phoned again, warning “your beautiful cathedral will be blown up before midnight.”

St. Patrick’s Cathedral has always been a work in process.  In 1927 Cardinal Hayes initiated an ambitious $2 million renovation project that included an enlarged sanctuary, rebuilt choir gallery, new organs in the gallery and chancel, new nave flooring and pews and a new baptistery.  Two decades later, Cardinal Francis Spellman added new upper windows, a new high altar and a replacement altar in the Lady Chapel, and extensive exterior stone restoration.

Hayes also commissioned the great bronze doors, which were felt to be more “in keeping with the rest of the building.”  Seventeen of the 19 altars as well as the Stations of the Cross were repaired, cleaned and repolished.  

The great bronze doors weigh over 20,000 pounds each; yet they are so balanced that they can be opened with a single hand.  Sculptures of saints and "blessed people" grace the panels. -- photo by St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Restoration of the entire interior was done in 1972, the exterior was restored in 1979 and in 1984 a six-year structural repair process was begun.  This included replacement of much of the roof, resetting of the exterior steps, refinishing the doors, restoring the bells and rebuilding the organs.

Throughout the years the cathedral has been the focal point of protestors railing against the Viet Nam War, the discontinuance of the Latin mass and, of course, the annual protests of Gay Rights advocates to march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Despite Helen Henderson’s criticisms of the great cathedral, the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission said of it, “St. Patrick’s Cathedral represents the epitome of the Gothic Revival in New York City” and called it “A marvel of architectural design for its day.”