The History of Old Saint Mary's Cathedral, Part 2

History of Old Saint Mary's, Part 1 | Old Saint Mary's, Past and Present

Programs of education and improvement were initiated. A temperance and benevolent society offered its members health insurance, death benefits and even disability benefits. A library and lecture association were established.

Less than a quarter century after its dedication, St. Mary's Cathedral found itself in the middle of a declining area of the city. Its neighboring streets were decaying and full of unsavory characters and criminal activity.

September of 1881 found Archbishop Alemany addressing his flock in a pastoral letter. The cathedral, he told them, had to be moved to a safer, less notorious place. Two years later, a site was purchased on the corner of O'Farrell Street and Van Ness Avenue, a neighborhood without such dangers.

With arrangements for the new cathedral site completed, Archbishop Alemany retired and later returned to Spain where he died in 1888. His successor, Archbishop Patrick William Riordan, oversaw the construction and moved to the new address. On January 11, 1891 the new Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption was dedicated and the former cathedral became a parish church known simply as "Old Saint Mary's."

The Paulists

For nearly four years thereafter, Old St. Mary's was served by diocesan clergy. Then on December 8, 1894, Archbishop Riordan introduced the Paulist Fathers to the congregation as they assembled for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Old St. Mary's, explained the Archbishop, would now be staffed by the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle, or, as they are more commonly known, the Paulists.

A group of Paulist Fathers, including Edward Bernard Brady, far left, 1st Paulist Pastor of Old Saint Mary's

While relatively small, the parish which the Paulists undertook was spectacularly varied. In addition to the rough and tumble confines that had brought about the change of the cathedrals location, the parish included Nob Hill, in a westward direction up California Street where the mansions of people by the name of Stanford, Hopkins, Flood and Huntington stood. Down California Street, in an eastward direction toward Market Street, was the business district where bankers, traders, and brokers spent their days. There was nearby Kearny Street with a wonderful selection of shops open all day. At night, many theater productions on that street attracted new crowds. Also in the business district were a number of residential hotels inhabited by single men and women without families.

The Chinese Mission

Nearby Chinatown, densely packed and poor, was not the inviting colorful community that we know today. Its streets were filled with desperate, silent people. Crowded together, they were trying to survive in a strange land in which many had no intention of settling permanently. These Chinese immigrants were often ignored or treated with contempt by city officials.

Early Chinese Converts

More and more openly, as the years went by, the criminal Chinese gangs, known as tongs, battled one another for control of their various enterprises. The violence in Chinatown reached such at a point that it could no longer be ignored by the city authorities.

Because of this turbulence, Old St. Mary's saw a unique opportunity to serve. The church, sitting on the main street of Chinatown, known as Dupont Gai, began to make its influence felt. The Paulists established a Chinese Mission.

While physically independent from Old St. Mary's it was an essential part of the Paulist Father's ministry. The Chinese Mission, though initially housed in the basement of Old Saint Mary's, moved prior to the earthquake of 1906 to a house on Clay Street donated by an Irish parishioner.

The 1906 Earthquake

Shortly after five o'clock on the morning of April 18, 1906, San Francisco began to shake. Forty-five seconds later, everything in California west of the San Andreas Fault had shifted 16 feet to the north. Charles Richter had yet to devise his scale, but it has been suggested that the quake, number 418 to shake San Francisco since 1848, would have registered 8.25 on the scale.

While a large part of the area of Old St. Mary' s parish was wrecked by the quake, the church itself sustained relatively little damage. A few heartbeats later, however, fires ignited by severed gas mains and overturned oil lamps began to race through the streets at uncontrollable speeds. San Francisco soon resembled an inferno, as raging walls of fire fanned by shifting winds leapt from one block to the next. Choking on smoke and hot ash, people fled their neighborhoods, and in some places they were joined by hoards of rats flushed from the cellars of Chinatown.

Flames approach Old Saint Mary's after the 1906 earthquake.

When the last fires were extinguished, 452 people were dead and thousands were homeless. Over 500 blocks and 28,000 buildings had been destroyed and much of San Francisco was a pile of smoking rubble with a price tag of $450 million dollars in damage. Old St. Mary's had survived the earthquake, only to be gutted by fire the day after. Gone were the roof, the ceilings, and the stained glass windows. The fire was so hot it melted the bell and the carved Carrara marble detail of the altar. All that remained of San Francisco's first cathedral were its outer walls and its bell tower.

Old Saint Mary's after the 1906 earthquake.

A debate soon began over whether to pull down the remains of the church and relocate, or to rebuild. The first option was that of Archbishop Riordan, who wanted the church moved to a better neighborhood. The latter view was championed by Father Wyman, the Paulist Pastor, who saw the necessity for it to remain where it was, and to honor the people's view of Old St. Mary's as a piece of irreplaceable history.

For a time the fate of the church hung in the balance and Father Wyman agonized over the outcome. In the meantime, parishioners worshipped in a temporary wooden church built where the rectory now stands.

Rebuilding from the Rubble

A year after the earthquake, it was decided to restore the church, thanks in part to a generous payment by the insurance carrier. The earthquake and the fire managed to accomplish in a few days what years of agitation for reform and uplift could not. Gone were the many bordellos, bars and gambling houses that had surrounded the church. Gone too, at least for a time, was the Barbary Coast, whose proximity to Chinatown led to an easy exchange of criminal commerce along the connecting streets.

The rebuilt Old Saint Mary's in 1909

On June 20, 1909, Archbishop Riordan rededicated a renovated Old St. Mary's. The renovation minimally changed the lines of the church, and provided several structural improvements. Steel was used to replaced the burned wood roof trusses and floor framing. More durable materials modified and replaced trim elements damaged by the quake and fire. Facing the church across California Street, where some of the neighborhoods more notorious dings once stood, there was now a new park named St. Mary' s Square.

In Chinatown, the destruction of the tenements and dark back streets helped to break down the criminal tongs. The Chinese community, along with the rest of the city's ethnic enclaves, hurried back to its little corner of the city and rebuilt itself.

In doing so, it opened itself to the outside world as it had not done since the earliest days. Dupont Street was renamed Grant Avenue and some of its pagoda-style roofs that have become symbols of Chinatown, were products of post-earthquake reconstruction.

Three years later, in 1909, the Chinese Mission was in operation again and more people from Chinatown were showing interest in learning about Christianity. The only cultural concessions demanded of Chinese converts was that they resign their membership in Chinese secret societies, or tongs, prior to baptism. For the next dozen years, the Mission rented the space it needed until a permanent site for the Holy Family Parish and S. Mary's Chinese School was chosen on Stockton Street.

For San Francisco, the years during World War I and the Roaring '20's were prosperous ones. The city, including the parish of Old St. Mary's, saw construction on a level not witnessed since the period following the 1906 earthquake. The numbers of workers attracted by San Francisco's booming economy increased church attendance to such a degree that it became clear that Old St. Mary's needed to be enlarged.

In 1929, another fifty feet were added to the structure and the sanctuary was extended enabling the addition of a sacristy, three chapels and a transept. An enlarged seating capacity of over 2,000 made Old St. Mary's the largest church of the time in San Francisco. Beneath the church, a 500 seat auditorium with a stage was constructed. This space would become extremely useful as attendance increased in the ensuing years. A library and a lecture room were added on the Grant Avenue side of the building. The lecture room hosted programs which were open to the public.

A part of the Paulist's ministry at Old St. Mary's involved young people of the parish and throughout the city. The Alemany Club, a religious and social society, was begun in 1911, but it served only the young men of the parish. Several clubs thereafter also targeted only the young men of Old St. Mary's. So in 1940, a new society was founded that was meant for all young people of the parish. This club was named in honor of Father Henry Wyman, the tenacious Paulist Father who had survived some of grimmest years in the parish and had fought to keep Old St. Mary's in its original neighborhood.

World War II

It would have been impossible for Father Paul Ward, who started the Wyman Club, to foresee the role of the organization would soon play in San Francisco. With the entry of the United States into World War II, military service personnel began to pour into the city. Thus, the Wyman Club expanded its purpose to serve the tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors and marines who stopped in the city en route to and from their wartime assignments in the Pacific.

Old St. Mary's basement and auditorium became what many servicemen and women called "the closest thing to home in the whole war," because of the many social and dance events it offered. It was renamed Old St. Mary's Service Center.

In the two and a half years between March 1944 and September 1946 when it closed its doors for the last time, 450,000 members of the military had visited the center.

Servicemen relax at the Old Saint Mary's Service Center during World War II

It was a safe place to get a cup of coffee, write a letter or eat a meal. The Center provided parties, dances, shows, holiday celebrations and friendly volunteers for conversation.

Those who have served in uniform and found themselves in a port far from home will understand just how cherished and appreciated the Old St. Mary's Service Center must have been.