Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption (San Francisco)

First Saint Mary's Cathedral In 1853, Pope Pius IX erected the Archdiocese of San Francisco, a massive diocese stretching from Northern California east to the Colorado River. The pope appointed Bishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany as its first archbishop. Reverend Henry Ignatius Stark established Saint Mary's Parish in 1853 in the Chinatown section of San Francisco. His intention was to evangelize the Chinese community. However, with the creation of the archdiocese, Alemany decided that the new church should become the cathedral for the new archdiocese. He laid the cornerstone for Saint Mary's that same year. Chinese laborers constructed the church using with brick brought around Cape Horn and granite cut in China. Alemany consecrated the first Saint Mary's Cathedral on December 24, 1854. When it opened, the cathedral was the tallest and largest building in the city. Second Saint Mary's Cathedral By the early 1880s, the rapid population growth in the San Francisco Bay Area prompted the archdiocese to plan for a new cathedral. In 1883, Archbishop Patrick W. Riordan purchased a property on the corner of Van Ness Avenue and O'Farrell Street in the Western Addition section of the city. Third Saint Mary's Cathedral The cornerstone for the third and present Saint Mary's Cathedral was laid on December 13, 1967, and the cathedral was completed three years later. On May 5, 1971, the cathedral was consecrated. It cost $9 million. In 2015, the media reported that the cathedral staff had installed sprinklers at some of the outside alcoves of the cathedral to discourage homeless people from sleeping there. Bishop William Justice apologized to the community and the sprinklers were removed. It ran the private all-female Cathedral High School, in a building adjoining the present-day cathedral. CHS merged with nearby all-male private Sacred Heart High School in 1987. Saint Mary's Cathedral still has close ties to the resulting Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory, which uses the cathedral as its principal church for masses and other special events, such as graduation. ==Design and construction==

, Saint Mary's Cathedral (2013) The original design team in the early 1960s for the third Saint Mary's Cathedral was the architects John Michael Lee, Paul A. Ryan and Angus McSweeney of San Francisco. Archbishop Joseph Thomas McGucken told them that he envisioned:...a cathedral that would accommodate large numbers of people; one that would enable even large crowds to surround the altar; and a structure that would be a statement that God is present in beauty in the earthly city. Some called it "Our Lady of Maytag" because the roof (designed to look like a conquistador's helmet) resembled the agitator in a washing machine. Measuring square, Saint Mary's Cathedral is high and is crowned with a golden cross. Its saddle roof is composed of eight segments of hyperbolic paraboloids. The bottom horizontal cross section of the roof is a square and the top cross section is a cross. Precast concrete work, the entire top portion of the building, was constructed by Terracon and the DiRegolo Family of Hayward, California. Saint Mary's Cathedral was selected in 2007 by the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects for a list of San Francisco's top 25 buildings.{{cite web ==Cathedral rectors and administrators (1891 to present)==

• John J. Prendergast, vicar general, 1891 – 1913 • Charles Augustus Ramm, 1914 – 1948 • Hugh Aloysius Donohoe, vicar general, 1948 – 1962 • Thomas J. Bowe, 1962 – 1980 • J. O’Shaughnessy, administrator, 1979 – 1981, rector 1981 – 1986 • Patrick Joseph McGrath, 1986 – 1989 • Milton T. Walsh, 1989 – 1997 • John O’Connor, 1997 – 2002 • Angel Jose De Heredia, administrator, 2002 – 2003 • John Talesfore, 2005 – 2015 • William J. Justice, administrator, 2015 • Arturo Albano, 2015 – 2022 • Kevin Kennedy, 2022 – present ==Interior photos==

File:CathedralofSaintMaryoftheAssumption2.jpg File:CathedralofSaintMaryoftheAssumption3.jpg ==See also==