Beneath the recently renovated Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Little Italy, there is a very little-known secret. A huge wooden door that looks more befitting of a medieval castle than an urban church stands between an old basement chapel and the final resting place of dozens of souls from New York’s past.

Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral was first built by the Irish immigrants who migrated to New York in 1700’s and 1800’s to provide a place of worship amidst terrible anti-Catholic sentiment cultivated by the British Protestants who dominated our Eastern seaboard.