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| St. James Cathedral from 9th Ave, built 1907 and designed by Heins and LaFarge. | Alternate angle from Terry Ave. |
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| The towers of St. James are 167 feet high. | North side of the cruciform structure. |
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| West entrance. The large bronze doors were designed in 1999 by Ulrich Henn. | The view, once you step inside from the west. |
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| Looking back toward the west entrance. | In 1994 the altar was moved to the center of the assembly and skylight added. The central dome collapsed in 1916 under the weight of snow. |
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| Interior courtyard. | Back face of the cathedral. |
Seattle’s St. James Cathedral
January 22nd, 2009 @ 12:11 am by Cliffe | Sorted Historic Buildings |
You don’t have to be a (wo)man of God to appreciate one of First Hill’s, h***, one of Seattle’s great architectural treasures. I am of course talking about St. James Cathedral at 804 9th Ave. Bishop Edward J. O’Dea hired architectural firm Heins and LaFarge to design the grand structure in 1904. The cornerstone was placed in 1905 and the cathedral opened on December 22, 1907. The original 40-foot central dome crashed to the floor in 1916 after heavy snow, but no one was hurt. Divine intervention? Well, maybe if the dome hadn’t crashed to the floor. Anyway, St. James is now a designated city landmark. Click on the thumbnails for higher res photos.
In Chicago, there are many wonderful and old churches like this. unfortunately, many of the congregations have closed or consolidated over the years and some of the churches end up torn down or falling apart because there isn’t enough money to fix them. Many are incredibly grand structures and gorgeous to boot like your St. James.
there’s another big, mostly wooden, cathedral on Capitol Hill I’d love to see shots of. i couldn’t find it on the archdiocese’s website, alas. I am pretty sure it’s Catholic; when I stumbled across it several years ago I somehow figured out that the congregation had historically been Filipino, but I don’t know how i came up with that idea, so I could be way off base.
I love this place. A couple of years ago we (mattika) did a photo shoot in here, and recreated the interior in 3d.
Matt sent me the link. Very cool!
http://www.mattikaarts.com/showcase_cath.html
They don’t make em like this anymore…
mike, “cathedral” is not a synonym for “big church”. A cathedral is called that only by virtue of being the seat of a bishop or archbishop. Seattle has 3 cathedrals, but only one Catholic one, which is St. James. The other cathedrals are Episcopal (St. Mark’s on Capitol Hill) and Russian Orthodox (St. Spiridon, which is near the REI next to I-5). Neither of those are wooden, so they can’t be the church you’re thinking of. The only other Catholic churches on Capitol Hill are St. Joseph’s and St. Patrick’s, again neither of which is wooden.
Perhaps you’re thinking of Immaculate Conception Church, which is really more on First Hill than on Capitol. Try a Google Maps Street View of 870 18th Ave.
it could be Immaculate Conception, i guess. I recall it as being mostly wooden. Immaculate Conception’s mostly brick (although i think I saw on the arhcd. site yesterday it’s the oldest of the big churches in town). I recall it being physically as large as Immaculate Conception but with very plain, dilapidated steeples topping the westworks.
I came across it on a long walk originating at 12th and John. I recall being very saurprised by it and place it in my memory east and south of the Safeway at 15th and John, 18th sounds about right for the cross street, but it seemed closer to Madison. on the other hand it was located right on the ridgetop and if you draw a line along the highest elevation from south of Madison up along 15th there really aren’t many large structures west of 23rd. So it’s possible I am thinking of Immaculate Conception.
Immaculate Conception (in the Central District) is mostly brick, but I believe the two towers are mostly wood. The towers were spruced up several years ago and look in much better shape than they once did, so perhaps this is what Mike was thinking about. The Filipino girls dance group (that are in almost EVERY parade) did use (and possibly still do) the space there to rehearse. The brick school building on the campus (just south of the church) was up for lease within the past year, so may not still be in the same use it was previously. The music group I am in now uses the parking lot each spring for our parade rehearsing.
I’m guessing Mike is thinking of Immaculate Conception. The interior is a testament to the abundance of lumber in Seattle’s past. The columns are almost literally trees stripped of their branches and the pews can be described as quite “hefty” made of 4″ or thicker timbers.