Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart

The Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the fifth-largest cathedral in North America, is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. It is located at 89 Ridge Street in the Lower Broadway neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey. Envisioned as a "fitting monument to the faith," construction began in 1899 and was finished in 1954. The original design called for an English-Irish Gothic Revival church, but plans were later modified in favor of a French Gothic Revival style.PlanningThe Cathedral of the Sacred Heart was proposed in 1859 by James Roosevelt Bayley, the Bishop of Newark, just six years after his appointment by Pope Pius IX. Proposed sites included a corner at High and Kinney Streets and an alternate at South and Broad Streets.However, the current site, next to Branch Brook Park in the Forest Hill section of Newark's North Ward, was chosen. Bayley waited to buy the land until the site was recommended by Jeremiah O'Rourke, the architect of the planned cathedral; the Reverend Monsignor George Hobart Doane; and the Right Reverend G.W. Doane. G.W. Doane liked the current site because it "commands a view of the Orange Mountains on the west and Newark Valley, the hills of Staten Island, and New York on the east." The property purchase was completed January 2, 1871, for US$60,000.