The Basilica of Saint Patrick's Old Cathedral, sometimes shortened to St. Patrick's Old Cathedral or simply Old St. Patrick's, is a Catholic parish church, a basilica, and the former cathedral of the Archdiocese of New York, located in the Nolita neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Built between 1809 and 1815 and designed by Joseph-François Mangin in the Gothic Revival style, it was the seat of the archdiocese until the current St. Patrick's Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan opened in 1879. Currently, liturgies are celebrated in English, Spanish, and Chinese. The church is at 260–264 Mulberry Street between Prince and Houston streets, with the primary entrance on Mott Street. Old St. Patrick parish merged with Most Precious Blood parish, and the two churches share priests and administrative staff.
The Old St. Patrick's church building was designated a New York City landmark in 1966, and the cathedral complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. It was declared a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI on Saint Patrick's Day, March 17, 2010.
History
The first Catholic parish church in New York City was St. Peter's on Barclay Street, the cornerstone of which was laid in 1785. By the early 19th century, Anthony Kohlmann, the Jesuit rector of that church, realized that the city's growing Catholic population needed both a second sanctuary and a cathedral for the first bishop, since the city had been made a see in 1808. The site he selected for the new church was being used as a cemetery for St. Peter's, and was well outside the settled area of the city, surrounded by farmland and the country houses of the rich. The architect chosen was Joseph-Francois Mangin, who had co-designed New York's City Hall with John McComb Jr., construction on which was ongoing when the cornerstone of St. Patrick's was laid on June 8, 1809. Construction took just under six years, with the sanctuary being dedicated on May 14, 1815. In that same year, John Connolly, an Irish Dominican friar, arrived to take office as the city's first resident bishop. When complete, the church was the largest in the city. Its outer dimensions are 120 by 80 feet, and the inner vault is 85 feet high (37m x 24m x 26m).
Until 1830 the cathedral was the ending place of New York's annual St. Patrick's Day parade. After that, it ended further south along Mott Street at the Church of the Transfiguration, whose pastor, Felix Varela, was a Spanish political refugee from Cuba. In New York, he served as the chaplain off the Hibernian Universal Benevolent Society. Eventually, the parade moved uptown to pass in front of the new St. Patrick's Cathedral (1879).
In 1836, the original cathedral was the subject of an attempted sack after tensions between Irish Catholics and anti-catholic Know-Nothing nativists led to a number of riots and other physical confrontations. The situation worsened when a brain-injured young woman, Maria Monk, wrote a book telling her "true" story – a Protestant girl who converted to Catholicism, and was then allegedly forced by nuns to have sex with priests, with the resulting children being baptized then killed horribly. Despite the book being debunked by a mildly anti-Catholic magazine editor, nativist anger at the story resulted in a decision to attack the cathedral. Loopholes were cut in the church's outer walls, which had just recently been built in 1834, and the building was defended from the rioters with muskets. Afterwards, the Ancient Order of Hibernians established its headquarters across the street from the church.
In 1838, the cathedral was the location for the funeral of Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart's primary librettist, who had fled to America in 1805 fearing bankruptcy. He became a professor at Columbia University and started what eventually became the Metropolitan Opera. The funeral was attended by an enormous number of people.
On October 7, 1866, the cathedral was gutted by a fire that spread from a nearby shop. Even though the new St. Patrick's was already under construction, the old cathedral was restored under the direction of architect Henry Engelbert. The first Mass was celebrated in the rebuilt cathedral on April 1, 1867. The new Old Cathedral was reopened in 1868.
Since the current St. Patrick's Cathedral opened in 1879, St. Patrick's Old Cathedral has been a parish church, the pastor residing in the old Bishop's House at 263 Mulberry Street. Today's multi-ethnic parish includes the territory of the former Most Holy Crucifix Parish, whose church for a time was the nearby Chapel of San Lorenzo Ruiz and housed the Filipino Catholic Apostolate for the Archdiocese of New York.