Built between 1809 and 1815 and designed by Joseph-François Mangin in the Gothic Revival style,[3] it was the seat of the archdiocese until the current St. Patrick's Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan opened in 1879.

[6] The Old St. Patrick's church building was designated a New York City landmark in 1966,[7] and the cathedral complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

[9] The site he selected for the new church was being used as a cemetery for St. Peter's,[3] and was well outside the settled area of the city, surrounded by farmland and the country houses of the rich.

[9] The architect chosen was Joseph-Francois Mangin, who had co-designed New York's City Hall with John McComb Jr.,[10] construction on which was ongoing when the cornerstone of St. Patrick's was laid on June 8, 1809.

After that, it ended further south along Mott Street at the Church of the Transfiguration, whose pastor, Felix Varela, was a Spanish political refugee from Cuba.

[citation needed] In 1836, the original cathedral was the subject of an attempted sack after tensions between Irish Catholics and anti-catholic Know-Nothing nativists led to a number of riots and other physical confrontations.

The situation worsened when a brain-injured young woman, Maria Monk, wrote a book telling her "true" story – a Protestant girl who converted to Catholicism, and was then allegedly forced by nuns to have sex with priests, with the resulting children being baptized then killed horribly.

Despite the book being debunked by a mildly anti-Catholic magazine editor, nativist anger at the story resulted in a decision to attack the cathedral.

[citation needed] In 1838, the cathedral was the location for the funeral of Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart's primary librettist, who had fled to America in 1805 fearing bankruptcy.

The marriage was heralded by the press as "The Diamond Wedding," after the luxurious preparations were revealed, including opulent gifts of jewelry by the groom.

[27] Old St. Patrick's Cathedral gallery holds a large pipe organ that was built in 1868 by Henry Erben, originally operated without any use of electricity.