#134 St. Patrick's Cathedral

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Places & Travel

4.8 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2012

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

One of America's most famous churches and a graceful icon upon the landscape of midtown Manhattan, St. Patrick's Cathedral was also one of New York's most arduous building projects, taking decades to build. An overflow of worshippers at downtown's old St Patrick's demanded a vast new place of worship, even as most Catholic New Yorkers were having an uneasy time due to religious prejudice by angry 'nativists'. Enter 'Dagger' John Hughes, the relentless first Archbishop of New York, who hammered the city for equal treatment for Catholics and managed to construct several New York institutions still in existence. Many scoffed at his idea of building a gigantic cathedral so far north of town. We explore the early years of this once-quiet piece of mid-Manhattan property and some of the notable events that have taken place at St. Patrick's since its opening. ALSO: The tale of the revered Haitian hairdresser in the crypt! CORRECTION: Near the end of the podcast, I say that 'Godfather III' was filmed at St. Patricks. It was, but it's the OLD downtown St Pat's, not the Midtown. Sorry for the error! Check out our blog www.boweryboypodcast.com Twitter: boweryboys Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	Episode 134 of The Bowery Boys, St. Patrick's Cathedral.
0:04.4	Hey, it's The Bowery Boys!
0:06.0	Hey!
0:08.0	The Bowery Boys is brought to you by urochipo.com.
0:12.0	Urochipo editors personally visit and review the best budget hotels in Europe.
0:17.0	Now with hotels in New York City, on the web at urochipo.com.
0:22.0	Hi there, welcome to The Bowery Boys. This is Greg Young.
0:24.0	And this is Tom Myers.
0:26.0	Welcome to another episode of The Bowery Boys New York City History.
0:29.0	And for this show, we're going to one of the most treasured churches in New York City.
0:36.0	A place of calm in the midst of one of the world's busiest neighborhoods.
0:41.0	Craziest neighborhoods.
0:42.0	St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is our topic, it's not the longest, it's not the biggest church in New York,
0:48.0	but it is the most popular, especially with tourists.
0:52.0	It's helped to find Fifth Avenue, which in the late 19th century used to be a street
0:57.0	that was lined with fabulous mansions.
1:00.0	This church cast a very reverent shadow over this.
1:04.0	But more importantly, what the story of St. Patrick's hides is the history of early Irish immigration.
1:11.0	And how select members of the church were able to represent the Irish in serving their needs in the city.
1:16.0	Right, it's a story about the Catholic community, the Irish, the Italians in New York,
1:22.0	and their growing power and wealth as well.
1:24.0	This church took forever to finally get built.
	...

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