Robert Cary Long Jr. was educated at
St. Mary's College in Baltimore, Maryland. Upon graduating, he trained with
Ithiel Town at the office of
Martin E. Thompson in New York. A significant portion of Town's work was in the
Federal and
Greek revival and
Gothic Revival styles. After the death of his father in 1833, Long returned to Baltimore and continued the practice. One of his early commissions was a finishing school, the
Patapsco Female Institute, designed in 1834. He and William Reasin designed the
Lloyd Street Synagogue in
Greek Revival style. Long was the preferred architect of Episcopal Bishop
William Rollinson Whittingham, for whom he designed
Mount Calvary Church. The Gothic Revival gateway at
Green Mount Cemetery dates to 1839. The diocesan see was later translated to
Jackson; the building was designated St. Mary Basilica in 1998. The Church of St. Alphonsus was commissioned by the
Redemptorists who had come to Baltimore to tend the German-speaking Catholics. The work entailed not only the Gothic Revival church, but a convent and rectory, both brick
Georgian townhouses, and St. Alphonsus Halle. Construction took place between 1842 and 1845, and was Long's first major project. The church is designed in Southern German neo-Gothic style. The attached rectory served as the provincial headquarters for the Redemptorist Fathers and Brothers. ==Baltimore==