Why take this tour
Catacombs by Candlelight is an guided historical visit inside the Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral complex on Mulberry Street. The route begins among two normally restricted walled cemeteries, then enters the basilica and its underground crypt spaces, parts of an active Roman Catholic parish rather than a theatrical set.
The experience
Old St. Patrick's was the first cathedral of the Archdiocese of New York, and its burial grounds preserve the history of early Catholic New York and successive immigrant communities. The catacombs contain family vaults and clergy burials whose stories connect religious institutions with the city's civic, commercial and cultural development.
Before you book
The approximately eighty-minute route is divided between outdoor and climate-controlled interior spaces. Candlelight shapes the atmosphere below ground, but the substance is documentary: architecture, funerary customs, named New Yorkers and the survival of a sacred complex amid the dense streets of Nolita and Little Italy.
