Old Saint Mary's Cathedral

NoeHill Webmaster

Old Saint Mary's Cathedral is San Francisco Landmark 2 and California Historical Landmark 810. It was built in 1854 and rebuilt in 1909 after it was damaged by the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. It was the first Roman Catholic Cathedral in California. It is the second oldest church in San Francisco still in use. In 1891, a new St. Mary's Church was built on Van Ness Avenue to replace Old St. Mary's Church as the cathedral. The brick building is Victorian Gothic in style. The stone foundations were cut to order in China. The bricks came from New England. The original design included a two hundred foot spire which was never built. The built tower is ninety feet high. The plinth, embrasure caps, buttresses, tower door, mouldings and crockets, as well as the corbels of the windows, are of cut stone. The pinnacles and parapet of the tower are also of cut stone.

Christian Heppinstall

This is a very beautiful and completely historical church in the heart of Chinatown in San Francisco with a very good historical survey of the earthquake and fire of 1906.

AlisaK Moore

I always love visiting this beautiful historic church just on the Edge of Chinatown in San Francisco. When you are inside the church you really get a sense of the years of Prayer that have taken place there. It feels very sacred. The church survived the 1906 earthquake and fire and was once the tallest building in San Francisco. Just around the corner in the basement of the church is a giant religious supplies store where you can just about find anything you want Including beautiful gifts that aren't specifically religious-themed. After my most recent visit to the church I enjoyed a stroll through Chinatown at dusk. The entire visit was enchanting.

Karen V Chin

At the beginning of Chinatown on corner of Grant Avenue and California Street with the California St cable car stop stopping in front of it, this historic Roman Catholic Church has a uniquely looking Virgin Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus for the Chinese Catholics who worship at this church. More modern looking inside in terms what you think it would look like compared to the outside historic old red brick architecture. Free to visit during the day. Quiet, serene, there is no issue to walk up and on to the altar compared to North Beach's St Peter & Paul's Church where their Italian Carrera marble altar is chained, or roped off.