St. Patrick's Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is the seat of the Archbishop of New York as well as a parish church. The cathedral occupies a city block bounded by Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, 50th Street, and 51st Street, directly across from Rockefeller Center. Designed by James Renwick Jr., it is the largest Gothic Revival Catholic cathedral in North America.
The cathedral was constructed starting in 1858 to accommodate the growing Archdiocese of New York and to replace St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. Work was halted in the early 1860s during the American Civil War; the cathedral was completed in 1878 and dedicated on May 25, 1879. The archbishop's house and rectory were added in the early 1880s, both designed by James Renwick Jr., and the spires were added in 1888. A Lady chapel designed by Charles T. Mathews was constructed from 1901 to 1906. The cathedral was consecrated on October 5, 1910, after all its debt had been paid off. Extensive restorations of the cathedral were conducted several times, including in the 1940s, 1970s, and 2010s.
St. Patrick's Cathedral is clad in marble and has several dozen stained glass windows. It measures long, with a maximum width of at the transepts. The bronze doors that form the cathedral's main entrance on Fifth Avenue are flanked by towers with spires rising . The northern tower contains nineteen bells, and the interior has two pipe organs. Inside is a nave flanked by several chapels; two transepts; a chancel and apse; and a crypt. East of the apse are the rectory, Lady chapel, and archbishop's residence facing Madison Avenue. The cathedral is a New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
History
The Diocese of New York was founded by Pope Pius VII in 1808. St. Patrick's was founded shortly afterward to serve New York City's small, but growing, Catholic population, which could no longer fit in St. Peter's Church. At the time, there were 15,000 Catholics in the diocese. The Jesuit community built a college on the site, which at the time was north of New York City proper. It contained a "fine old house" which was fitted with a chapel of St. Ignatius. In 1813, the Jesuits sold the lot to the Diocese of New York. The school closed in 1814 and the diocese gave the property to Dom Augustin LeStrange, the abbot of a community of Trappists who were fleeing persecution by French authorities. In addition to a small monastic community, they looked after orphans. With the downfall of Napoleon, the Trappists returned to France in 1815, but the neighboring orphanage was maintained by the diocese into the late nineteenth century.
In 1828, trustees of St. Patrick's, St. Peter's, and St. Mary's met to discuss the feasibility of establishing a burial ground at Fifth Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets. The trustees bought the property in 1829 but did not use it as a cemetery. Bishop John Dubois reopened the chapel in 1840 for Catholics employed at the Deaf and Dumb Asylum and in the general neighborhood. A modest frame church was built for the parish of St. John the Evangelist and dedicated in 1841 by the Rev. John Hughes, administrator of the diocese. Tickets were sold to the dedication to ease the parish's debt, but the mortgage was foreclosed upon, and in 1844 the church was sold at auction. The Rev. Michael A. Curran was appointed to raise funds for the devastated parish and used an old college hall as a temporary church. Curran continued raising funds to buy back the church during the Great Famine in Ireland, eventually succeeding and taking the deed in his own name. As a result, several additional dioceses were created in New York state. Most of New York state's Catholics at the time were Irish. Bishop John Joseph Hughes was raised to the level of archbishop soon afterward. At the time, the Fifth Avenue site was still relatively rural. The site faced the gardens of Columbia University to the west, but the surrounding area was otherwise characterized by rocks and unopened streets.
In 1853, Hughes announced that he had hired the firm Renwick & Rodrigue to design a cathedral on Fifth Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets. The other partner, James Renwick Jr., was largely responsible for designing the new St. Patrick's Cathedral. Renwick & Rodrigue originally planned a larger cathedral than the structure that was ultimately built. Hughes requested in 1857 that the firm reduce the dimensions of the new cathedral. To make way for the clergy's and archbishop's residences, the ambulatory was removed from the plans. The area behind the apse would have contained a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, but this was removed entirely. The numerous heavy buttresses in the design were also removed. To raise money for the effort, Hughes asked wealthy Catholics in the Archdiocese of New York to subscribe to a building fund for the new cathedral. One hundred and three subscribers donated $1,000 apiece, and two subscribers were non-Catholics. The cathedral was to be built in the Gothic Revival style. In addition, an archbishop's house and a chapel would face Madison Avenue. Archbishop Hughes laid the cornerstone in front of 100,000 spectators near the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 50th Street, though the precise location remains unclear. That October, the architects presented cost estimates for making the cathedral out of white marble, brown freestone, olive freestone, or granite. The white marble was the most expensive of the four options, with a projected cost of $850,000, and James Hall and William Joyce offered to supply the marble.