New York City is an elaborate collage of architectural styles, but some buildings certainly stand out more than others. St. Patrick's Cathedral is one such structure that captures the attention and admiration of every passerby. The end result of centuries of hard work, planning, and refurbishing, the cathedral is a monument to New York City's enduring Catholic community - no doubt a community with a refined appreciation for beauty and sanctity.
The story of St. Patrick's Cathedral tells the story of America in relation to the rest of the world. The existence of this impressive church is a living testament to the waves of migration, shifting demographics, and culture wars that took place in New York, which also brought about fundamental shifts in power and beliefs.
St Patrick's Cathedral has two iterations. In the early 1800s, New York City was home to a small but growing Catholic community, mostly comprised of Irish immigrants. At the time St. Peter's Church in downtown Manhattan was sufficient to accommodate the parish. However, as the years went by, the Irish Catholic community grew in numbers and St. Peter's became overcrowded. New York needed another church. This was when St. Patrick's Old Cathedral was erected on Mulberry St. The location is now a part of Chinatown and Little Italy. This was the first iteration of the church and served as the seat of New York's archdiocese.
In the mid-1800s, the great potato famine hit Ireland, which led to a massive exodus. Many Irish emigrants and refugees ended up in New York. As a result, the demographics of the city shifted dramatically in the span of a few years, creating pressure, once again, to build more churches to accommodate the new Catholics. A newer iteration of St. Patrick's Cathedral had to be built, but this time in Midtown Manhattan.
Much of American cultural history is defined by protestant dominance. At around this time in history - the mid-nineteenth century - the power balance in America was changing due to mass migration. The construction of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the first non-protestant place of worship in Midtown Manhattan, symbolically marked the beginning of the end of protestant dominance. Irish Catholics, who were a significantly discriminated against minority, now had a tangible cultural presence in New York, and by virtue of the size of the church, all of North America.
The construction of the Cathedral is also intertwined with American history in other ways. For example, in 1861, when the American Civil War broke out, funding and labor were in short supply, so the church construction was delayed. Only after the conclusion of the war, when the Union had won, was the church completed. Relying on donors and loans from wealthy Catholics and allied institutions, the Church was only completed in 1878. In total, it took over twenty years for St. Patrick's Cathedral to be built. In those long and eventful years, the American Civil War began and ended, slavery had been abolished, and the demographics of America had changed due to mass migration.
A spiritual continuation of 12th-century Gothic architecture, St. Patrick's Cathedral endows New York with an atmosphere of cultural and historical importance. In fact, St. Patrick's is the largest Gothic cathedral in North America. Despite its unique traditional architecture, the cathedral is situated in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, surrounded by rampant modernity, right opposite the Rockefeller building and next to Radio City. This is a great example of the extreme aesthetic and metaphysical juxtapositions that are so common to New York.
The Cathedral is made of several kinds of marble, imported from Maine and upstate New York. It has enormous brass doors, fit to serve as the gates of heaven. The interior is ornamented with stained glass windows, relief sculptures, and pointed archways. Below the altar, there is a small crypt that is obscured and protected by a heavy slab of stone that requires six people to move.
Many would agree that the remarkable and complex architecture of St. Patrick's Cathedral is a feat of excellence. James Renwick Jr., the mastermind behind the church, was an architectural protegee with no formal training. He began studying at Columbia University at the tender age of 12, an indicator that Renwick was talented beyond ordinary measure. In his later years, he was an eminent figure and had designed several other churches and cathedrals. Renwick's portfolio reveals his penchant for Gothic and Greco revivalism. When his firm was approached to design the new St. Patrick's Cathedral, he spent three years traveling the Christian world in search of inspiration. Eventually, after much deliberation and research, Renwick decided to model the church on the Cologne Cathedral in Germany.
For the last century and a half, despite repeated attempts to blow up, burn down, and deface the church, St. Patrick's Cathedral continues to stand strong. This is a remarkable feat in the city of transience.
Visitors can enter the church every day from 6:30 AM to 8:45 PM. Mass takes place multiple times a day and is heralded by the ringing of church bells, of which there are nineteen, each donated by different people and organizations. All the bells are sacralized with engravings of the crucifixion. Today, as New York changes further, the Catholic community is not limited to the Irish and Italians. Catholics from all over the world have settled in the Big Apple and attend mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral - a beautiful testament to the highest ideals of the Church.