In 1859, a “Gingerbread Gothic” Chancery Office Building was built at 266 Mulberry Street, just north of the St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral sanctuary, designed by James Renwick Jr. and William Rodrigue, who would go on to design the new cathedral. The building would later become St. Michael’s Chapel, then St. Michael’s Russian Catholic Byzantine Church, and, from 1936 until 2019, St. Michael’s Russian Catholic Church of the Byzantine Rite. St. Michael’s is the last Russian Catholic church in New York City, and was one of only four remaining such sanctuaries in the United States. Services are now held at the Church of St. Catherine of Siena, 411 East 68th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Fryer Andrew Rogosh arrived in New York at Christmas of 1935 in order to establish an apostolate to serve the needs of the émigré Russian Catholics who had made their way to the New York metropolitan area after the tragic upheavals in their homeland. In the following months of 1936, he began the work of establishing a chapel. Soon thereafter, St. Michael’s Russian Catholic Chapel opened its doors at 266 Mulberry Street in Manhattan in order to serve their needs. It is the only Russian-Byzantine Catholic Church in the eastern continental United States.
Underneath the basilica are catacombs which currently consist of 35 family crypts and 5 clerical vaults, and which have reopened to new interments. The basilica has also opened the catacombs to walking tours led by “Tommy’s New York”. Among the notable interments are the first resident Bishop of New York John Connolly, General Thomas Eckert, several members of the Delmonico restaurant family, Countess Annie Leary, and Congressman John Kelly.