St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral

New York’s first Catholic cathedral, more than half a century older than the famous one on Fifth Avenue

Local name: Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral

Collection: The Lower East Side and Chinatown · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

The story

Before you is St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, the first cathedral of New York’s Catholics. Pope Pius the Seventh created the Diocese of New York in 1808. On the eighth of June 1809 the cornerstone was laid here. At the time this was the edge of town, on the site of the cemetery of St. Peter’s, the city’s first Catholic church. The design was by a Frenchman, Joseph-François Mangin, who together with John McComb Jr. also designed New York’s City Hall. The War of 1812 slowed the work. The cathedral was dedicated in May 1815. It was the largest church in the city and one of the first Gothic Revival buildings in New York. Around it runs a brick wall with an old churchyard inside. According to legend, in 1836, when anti-Catholic mobs threatened to attack, loopholes were cut in the wall and parishioners waited with muskets. In October 1866 the cathedral was gutted by a great fire. Only the walls survived. The architect Henry Engelbert rebuilt it, and in 1868 the cathedral reopened. In 1879 the new St. Patrick’s Cathedral opened on Fifth Avenue, and the old one became a parish church. Beneath it are catacombs with family vaults. Pierre Toussaint was first buried in the churchyard. Born into slavery in Haiti, he won his freedom, became a well-known hairdresser and helped raise money for this cathedral. Later he was moved to the new cathedral. On St. Patrick’s Day 2010 Pope Benedict the Sixteenth made the church a minor basilica.

Visiting

The main entrance is on Mott Street between Prince and Houston Streets; the parish address is 263 Mulberry Street. An active church; the Mass schedule is on the parish website. Separate tours go down to the catacombs.