St. Patrick's Cathedral

This guide to St. Patrick's Cathedral follows Archbishop John Hughes, nicknamed Dagger John, who in 1858 announced plans to build a grand cathedral on scrubland in upper Manhattan that the press mocked as Hughes' Folly. It traces the money running out after two years, the Civil War halting construction, and the years the unfinished shell stood open to the weather with trees growing inside it. Look up at the twin spires above the entrance as you take in the finished result.