St. Patrick's Church

This guide to St. Patrick's Church in New Orleans follows architect James Gallier, who inherited an unfinished Gothic sanctuary in the late 1830s only to find its stone tower leaning and its walls sliding on a foundation built partly from salvaged flatboat gunwales over swamp ground. Most builders in his position would have torn the tower down and started fresh. Instead Gallier, an Irish immigrant still building his reputation, climbed into the trench himself before letting a single worker near it, choosing a repair method closer to surgery. Stand back and look up at the spire while you listen.