St. Patrick's Cathedral United States

Legendary

This Neo Gothic Roman Catholic Cathedral dates back to 1858.

Photo by Warren LeMay

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When Archbishop John Hughes announced in 1853 that he would build a great cathedral on Fifth Avenue, people laughed. The site was almost open countryside, two miles north of where New Yorkers actually lived.

They called the project "Hughes' Folly." He insisted the spot would one day be the heart of the city.

He was right. The cathedral now sits directly across from Rockefeller Center, surrounded by skyscrapers.

Hughes hired James Renwick Jr., who designed it in the Gothic Revival style, borrowing from the great medieval cathedrals of Germany, France, and England. It's the largest Gothic Revival Catholic cathedral in North America.

The cornerstone was laid on August 15, 1858, in front of a reported 100,000 spectators. Then the money problems began.

Hughes paid for it by asking everyone. Poor Irish immigrants gave small amounts they could barely spare, wealthy New Yorkers funded whole stained glass windows, and parishioners across the city made goods to sell at fundraising fairs.

The American Civil War stopped work completely in the early 1860s. There were no workers and no money.

Construction resumed in 1865. Hughes died in 1864 and never saw the building he'd fought for.

The main structure was finished in 1878, and Cardinal John McCloskey held one final fair inside the unfinished cathedral to pay for the furnishings. The doors opened on May 25, 1879, twenty-one years after the cornerstone.

Even then it wasn't done. The two spires, each 330 feet tall, were added in 1888, and the Lady Chapel behind the altar was built between 1901 and 1906.

The cathedral was finally consecrated on October 5, 1910, once every last debt had been paid off.

Walk the length of the nave, about 400 feet long with ceilings 110 feet overhead. Look for the Pietà near the Lady Chapel, a sculpture three times larger than Michelangelo's version in Rome. Entry is free, so step in off Fifth Avenue and let the noise of Midtown disappear.