Old St. Mary's - The Clock With a Warning

Old St. Mary's - The Clock With a Warning

Photo: Pierre Andre, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

A stop on San Francisco, District by District, a free self-guided tour.

Old St. Mary's Cathedral, at California Street and Grant Avenue, was dedicated at Christmas 1854, the first church in California built to serve as a cathedral. Chinese laborers raised it with brick shipped around Cape Horn and granite cut in China. In the 1850s this corner was ringed by brothels, which is why the clock tower carries a warning in large letters: Son, observe the time and fly from evil, a line from the Book of Sirach.

The church survived the shaking of April 18, 1906, but the fire gutted it the next day, leaving only the brick walls and the tower. It was rebuilt inside the old shell by 1909.

Across Grant Avenue, look at the corner buildings with tiered pagoda roofs. Built right after the fire, they were part of the merchants' plan to make the new Chinatown a showplace no one could justify tearing down.

More on Wikipedia: Old St. Mary's Cathedral

Stops on this tour

  1. Ferry Building and the Embarcadero - Where the City Met the World
  2. Financial District and Jackson Square - Gold Rush on the Old Shoreline
  3. Chinatown - The Neighborhood That Refused to Move
  4. North Beach and Telegraph Hill - Little Italy and the Beats
  5. Fisherman's Wharf - Italian Boats and Old Ships
  6. Nob Hill and Russian Hill - Cable Cars, Mansions and the Great Fire
  7. The Presidio - Two Centuries Guarding the Golden Gate
  8. Japantown and the Fillmore - Two Communities, One Neighborhood
  9. Haight-Ashbury - From Victorian Suburb to Summer of Love
  10. Golden Gate Park - Sand Dunes Turned Into a Park
  11. The Castro - A Neighborhood That Became a Movement
  12. The Mission - Where San Francisco Began
  13. Civic Center - Domes, Charters and Protest
  14. South of Market - From Rincon Hill to the Tech Boom