ST. LOUIS CATHEDRAL

New Orleans, LA

Three Roman Catholic churches have stood on this site since 1718. The first church was a crude wooden structure in the early colonial days. Construction of a larger brick and timber church was completed in 1727, but was destroyed in the Great New Orleans Fire on Good Friday, March 21, 1788. The cornerstone of a new Spanish colonial church was laid the next year and the building was completed in 1794. In 1793 St. Louis Church was elevated to cathedral rank, making it one of the oldest cathedrals in the United States. In 1849, a contract was made with John Patrick Kirwan to enlarge and restore the cathedral, using architect De Pouilly’s plan. His plan specified that everything except for the lateral walls and the lower portions of the existing towers on the front facade be demolished. During the reconstruction, it was determined that the sidewalls would have to be demolished too. In 1850, the central tower collapsed. De Pouilly and Kirwan were replaced. Very little of the structure survived, and the present structure dates to 1850. The bell from the 1819 tower was reused in the new building and remains there today. In 1909 a dynamite bomb was set off in the Cathedral, blowing out windows and damaging the galleries. The Cathedral also suffered damage in the New Orleans Hurricane of 1915, and the following year, a portion of the building collapsed. The cathedral was designated as a minor basilica by Pope Paul VI in 1964. Pope John Paul II visited the cathedral in September 1987.

This sketch was drawn during a business visit to New Orleans in 2000, while attending a hotel conference. I started the sketch sitting in the park in front of the cathedral. An elderly black man sat with me for a while. But the winter wind numbed my hands, making it hard to hold my pen. So I digitally photographed the building, and returned to my hotel to complete the sketch in the comfort of my room.