Grace Cathedral’s history page traces the parish to the Gold Rush. Grace Chapel was built in 1849 on Powell Street near Jackson, and the cathedral says the collection at its opening service was gold dust. The parish lost its church in the 1906 earthquake and fire. William H. Crocker’s family, whose Nob Hill mansions had also burned, then gave their block to the Episcopal Diocese of California for a cathedral.
A building that took decades
The cornerstone was laid in 1910. Wikipedia says English architect George Bodley drew the original plans, his partner Cecil Hare redesigned them after Bodley’s death, and San Francisco architect Lewis P. Hobart completed the design. Construction of the present building began in 1927, and the Chapel of Grace opened in 1930. By 1934 the partly finished cathedral was in use, but the Depression stopped work. The north tower went up between 1936 and 1943, and construction did not resume until 1960. The cathedral was consecrated on March 28, 1964. Wikipedia says Martin Luther King Jr. preached there a year later to about 5,000 people.
What to see
The front doors are replicas of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s “Gates of Paradise” at the Florence Baptistery. Wikipedia says they were cast in 1956 from molds of the originals and bought by San Francisco philanthropist Charles D. Field. Inside, a labyrinth on the floor is based on the medieval one at Chartres Cathedral in France, and a second labyrinth is outside in the courtyard.
The cathedral says it has 68 named stained glass windows covering about 7,290 square feet. It says its windows by Charles Connick’s Boston studio make up the largest Connick collection in the West. The carillon’s 44 bronze bells were cast in England in 1938. Wikipedia says they were the gift of Nathaniel T. Coulson, a San Francisco dentist who spent his savings on them and on the north “Singing Tower.” The cathedral says the bells have rung for D-Day and for VE and VJ days. Wikipedia lists Jan Henryk De Rosen’s murals and a Keith Haring altarpiece in the AIDS Interfaith Chapel among the other works.
Across the street is Huntington Park. For the city’s first cathedral, see our Old St. Mary’s guide.