St. Patrick's to Undergo a Three-Year, $177 Million Renovation - NYTimes.com

 

I’m talking about survival,” the cardinal said in an interview last week. “If we don’t do something substantive for St. Patrick’s Cathedral, in four or five years we’re going to have to close it, because it will be dangerous.”

That may be a bit of fund-raising hyperbole. But the physical condition of St. Patrick’s, which was designed by James Renwick Jr. and opened in 1879

last renovation of equivalent scope occurred in the 1940s. Lesser rehabilitation was done in the 1970s.

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WIKIPEDIA:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Patrick%27s_Cathedral_(New_York)

Construction of the cathedral

The Diocese of New York, created in 1808, was made an archdiocese by Pope Pius IX on July 19, 1850. In 1853, Archbishop John Joseph Hughes announced his intention to erect a new cathedral to replace the Old Saint Patrick's Cathedral in downtown Manhattan.^[6]

The new cathedral was designed by James Renwick, Jr. in the Gothic Revival style. On August 15, 1858, the cornerstone was laid, just south of the diocese's orphanage. At that time, present-day midtown Manhattan was far north of the populous areas of New York City.

Work was begun in 1858 but was halted during the Civil War and resumed in 1865. The cathedral was completed in 1878 and dedicated on May 25, 1879, its huge proportions dominating the midtown of that time. The archbishop's house and rectory were added from 1882 to 1884, and an adjacent school (no longer in existence) opened in 1882. The towers on the west façade were added in 1888, and an addition on the east, including a Lady chapel, designed by Charles T. Mathews, was begun in 1901. The stained-glass windows in the Lady Chapel were designed and made in Chipping Campden, England by Paul Vincent Woodroffe between 1912 and 1930. The cathedral was renovated between 1927 and 1931 when the great organ was installed and the sanctuary enlarged.

The cathedral and associated buildings were declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976.^[2][7][8]

[edit] Architectural features

This section is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (August 2011)

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• The cathedral is built of brick clad in marble, quarried in New York and Massachusetts.
• It can accommodate 2,200 people.
• The site of the church takes up a whole city block, bounded by East 51st Street to the north, Madison Avenue to the east, East 50th Street to the south, and Fifth Avenue to the west.
• It is 332 feet long and 174 feet wide at the transepts.
• The spires rise 330 feet (100 m) from street level.
• The windows were made by artists in Chartres, France; Birmingham, England; and Boston, Massachusetts. The great rose window is one of Charles Connick's major works.
• The Saint Michael and Saint Louis altar was designed by Tiffany & Co. The Saint Elizabeth altar was designed by Paolo Medici of Rome, Italy.
• The Saint John Baptist de la Salle altar, sculpted by Dominic Borgia, remains one of the few original side-chapel altars commemorating the patron saint of catechists and teachers. The adjoining stained-glass window depicts the Papal bull (a type of letters patent) of approbation granted by the Vatican to the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools who, since 1848, have conducted numerous parish grade and high schools throughout the Archdiocese of New York, as well as Manhattan College, Riverdale (in The Bronx borough of New York City) and Lincoln Hall.
• The cathedral's Stations of the Cross won a prize for artistry at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.
• The Pietà is three times larger than Michelangelo's Pietà. It was sculpted by William Ordway Partridge.
• A bust of Pope John Paul II is located in the rear of the cathedral, commemorating his visit to the city in 1979.
• Archbishop Francis Spellman, later cardinal, undertook a major renovation of the cathedral's main altar area in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The bronze baldachin in the sanctuary is part of this work, and the former high altar and reredos that stood there were removed and replaced. The original high altar of Saint Patrick's is now in the University Church of Fordham University in The Bronx (Spellman's alma mater). Coincidentally, that church, built in the 1830s, is also home to stained-glass windows donated by French King Louis-Philippe I for Saint Patrick's Old Cathedral downtown when it was originally being built. The windows were installed in the University Church when it was discovered that they did not fit in the Old Saint Patrick's. Clendenin J. Ryan donated the rose window. He was the grandson of Thomas Fortune Ryan and Ida Barry Ryan who built the Church of St. Jean Baptiste at East 76th Street and Lexington Avenue.
• In the 1980s, Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor undertook further renovation work, most notably the construction of a new stone altar in the middle of the sanctuary, closer and more visible to the congregation. It was built from sections of one of the side altars that were removed to reposition the baptismal font in the north transept.
• The roof is made from slate from Monson, Maine.

[edit] Organs

The original pipe organs, built by George Jardine & Son in the 19th century, have been replaced. The chancel organ, in the north ambulatory, was made by the St. Louis, Missouri, firm of George Kilgen & Son, and installed in 1928; it has 3,920 pipes. The grand gallery organ, by the same company, was installed in 1930, and has 5,918 pipes.^[9]

The combined organs, totaling 177 stops and 9,838 pipes, can be played from either of two five-manual consoles installed in the early 1990s to replace the original Kilgen consoles.

[edit] Burials and funeral Masses

Located underneath the high altar is a crypt in which notable Catholic figures that served the Archdiocese are entombed. They include:

The eight past deceased Archbishops of New York:

• John Hughes (interred 1883)
• John McCloskey (interred 1885)
• Michael Corrigan (interred 1902)
• John Murphy Farley (interred 1918)
• Patrick Joseph Hayes (interred 1938)
• Francis Spellman (interred 1967)
• Terence Cooke (interred 1983)
• John Joseph O'Connor (interred 2000)

Other interments:

• Michael J. Lavelle (Cathedral Rector and Vicar General; interred 1939)
• Joseph F. Flannelly (Auxiliary Bishop, 1948–1969; interred 1973)
• Fulton J. Sheen (Auxiliary Bishop, 1951–1965, later bishop of Rochester; interred 1979)
• John Maguire (Coadjutor Archbishop, 1965–1980; interred 1989)
• Pierre Toussaint (interred 1990)

In the above list, Cardinal O'Connor declared Pierre Toussaint, Archbishop Sheen, and Cardinal Cooke to be servants of God, a step in process of being declared a saint of the Catholic Church. Toussaint was declared venerable in 1996 by Pope John Paul II.

Four of the Cardinals' galeros (those of Cardinals McCloskey, Farley, Hayes, and Spellman) are located high above the crypt at the back of the sanctuary. Cardinal Spellman's galero was also worn by Pope Pius XII (as Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli) until the latter's election to the papacy at the 1939 Papal conclave. In 1967, the ceremony of the consistory was revised by Pope Paul VI and therefore no galero was presented to Cardinal Cooke or any of his successors.

Some notable people whose Requiem Masses were said at the cathedral include New York Yankees greats Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, and Billy Martin; legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, singer Celia Cruz, former Attorney General and U.S. Senator from New York Robert F. Kennedy, New York Giants owner Wellington Mara, and former Governor of New York Hugh Carey. Special memorial Masses were also held at the cathedral following the deaths of artist Andy Warhol, baseball player Joe DiMaggio, and noted author William F. Buckley, Jr.