Cathedral Block Tour

i want to point out here i'm standing on the north side of the new steps and if you look at this part way there's like an air vent or something in there now but this was for many years the entrance to the good evening as i think i've mentioned for about 10 or 12 years the basement of the people was the cathedral and this was the entrance to that cathedral obviously this has been regraded several times i'm standing up now but as it was originally done if you look in your book if you have this book and why not for three now uh so on page 36 you'll see a picture taken uh right near the end of the first world war and in that picture you can see this art and you can see that it's a complete part and people would go in here they said it wasn't this high on the outside and there were double doors down in the center of the wall there and he went into the cathedral which was the entire footprint from the basement this is the best place you can see to get the old original view of the original entrance for the similar arc on the other side but it's not quite the other outside feature that people need to be very aware of is the cornerstone this is the cornerstone of our cathedral and i don't know how you are at the latin numerals and numbers but that says 1906 18 1906. and that was the year the cornerstone was late and as we've mentioned i think a couple times before cathedral was not finished and dedicated until 1921. we just had our 100th anniversary of that but it took 15 years to totally or mostly complete this building okay we're standing on the south side of the south tower and looking up at south tower and i think almost everybody or anybody looks at our kirk and looks up at those towers their almost immediate reaction is it looks unfinished and in fact it is unfinished that tower now stands about 65 feet high and the original plans and again you can see a blueprint on that on the front of this book the original plan called for the tower to be about 120 feet tall there's another hole here that was supposed to go on there there's various depictions of towers on this building uh but this is the only accurate depiction of what the towers were actually meant to be uh there's a fame very large picture in the paris office with gothic towers uh and this is not a gothic building that is never meant to have a fire coming to your cheek at the top there's going to be another bank of uh three windows in that power and then you would stay very faithful to the romanesque idea of one two three that's the progression that would be made so there was going to be another whole 65 feet of tower there and finished with a decorative cap but not that gothic spire that we've all seen the reason why the towers weren't added was cost and it's intriguing today to realize that when the cathedral was finished although uh bishop glorio started it with the idea of never ever going into debt bishop gorman finished 80 000 in debt and the towers would have added a significant sum of 35 000 to that and so in 1920 the decision was made we're just not going to go into that kind of debt i think now the last estimate i heard if we really wanted to put powers on there or that finished the tower it would be like three and a half million dollars so 35 000 as opposed to three and a half million the decision had to be made another uh i find very intriguing and important outside feature of our cathedral is this window we're looking at now it's the kind of iconic representation of our lady of perpetual help that window was added i don't know i want to say five or six years ago but uh and that was originally that was a window a real window that looked out uh from a hallway down at the foot of the fire loft but when the elevators were put in in the late 60s i think that window was blocked off because of the el that's the elevator equipment room in there now and that window would just shut off nobody could ever look out of it and it stayed that way for many many many years and a member of the parish who is a doctor at saint luke's would often times be called in the middle of night to the hospital for an emergency and he would pass that empty window and he and his mother had a particular devotion to our lady of perpetual health and they thought we would love to put that picture so that everybody coming by can see this and he in particular said at night as i drive by with that lighted i can see it and remind me of the kind of mission i'm really going to when i go to the hospital i'm going to help somebody getting that with that picture in that window was a bit of a challenge because as i think we all know this is not just saint john's parish church it's the cathedral for the diocese and so we had to get permission from the power to be up on the hill there and uh it was a long process and shortly af in that process the doctor with dr johannes and in that process his mother who's really had the original idea to put this victory there died and shortly after she died and they're dealing with the bureaucracy and the permissions and whatnot uh all of a sudden permission came through and dr johan's feeling what that's it mom got up to heaven and she made it happen and so the political difficulties of putting that window in were resolved but then there are some practical problems and that was primarily this is probably the most pure southern facing exposure the church has and so put a picture in there uh it's gonna be hit by the sunlight all most of the day and it would very quickly fade they hired a an artist named cindy duff and cindy has done a lot of the truthful artwork and churches throughout the treasure valley you can see hers several of them she finally found out she she talked to people who do outdoor signs and she through them she found uh the material that it's not on wood it's not on some some kind of material that it's very resistant to the sun's rays and the paint as well is very resistant to the sun's rays and then the glass is provided an additional layer of protection so the hope is that that window despite the exposure to the sun constantly will last many many years and it is a reminder to everybody walking by catholic or not there is help available we're going to talk a little bit more about this for us older parishioners new courtyard um we can be i can remember when this was great approximately level with the sidewalk out here with the lawn and uh i think the women in saint john have an ice cream social every year trees and on the lawn except tabled up on the lawn if you look at the the wall of the church itself just below that picture of our lady you see this fat stone is a different color and that was where the original grading was in 2006 uh we did a dramatic renovation of the basement chapel in the basin cafeteria area like that we did a dramatic renovation of this outside area to create this new stone flag courtyard to the other side as well we're on the west side of that courtyard i talked about a bit ago the greendown courtyard in 2006. this is the new location for years this was in the yard of the old rectory but it was moved here to a much more prominent space and it's always interesting i'm not exactly a tall guy but i tower over the statue and interestingly this is actually mother teresa's society she was a tiny little woman and today she got even more expensive um i'm five foot eight and maybe five feet if she's lucky the other interesting thing from this aspect is if you look behind directly behind mother teresa on the other side of hay street there the gray and white building that now houses the montessori center for our cathedral that was the home of the first priest from the diocese of boise who was ever ordained here with uh last name was doherty i think his first name was michael but he grew up in that house and he became a priest and he was the first priest ordained in the diocese equation this is another very significant outside feature of our cathedral this is a beech tree that was planted by fish emporio well it's 134 years old planted in 1877 [Music] but it's very significant in that beach are not at all native to this area and they don't do well in this area there are several trees in boise but they're all imports bishop glorio watered this by hand himself for two years to get it established and going and if you look at pictures of various deweys in the cathedral over the years you'll cut you can see this tree growing and growing and growing it's huge uh it's the oldest bee tree in boise um it seems to be surviving we've just had some recent concrete work done the roots on the other side are practically all above obviously there are roots underground but massive restructuring and this tree is the real tale of survival and a tale of doing well through all kinds of adverse circumstances and like it appears to be very healthy i hope it's healthy i hope it's here for a long time to come but it is a highly significant part i think of the history okay we're now looking at the oldest building on the cathedral plot here we all know the cathedral and apprentices cover the the entire block we haze in fort nine to eight bishop florio bought that block for 12 000 and the first building he erected on it was originally designed and built to hold i think five priests and and kitchen and all the other pregnancies uh it's gone through a lot of different uses over the years with the parish office for a long time uh and now once again it's come full circle and it is the residence for three priests our newest parochial vicar uh one of the diocese increased and another okay we're looking at what used to be uh the main interest of the school or ferris school all on that same cathedral block um the main entrance is now on the other side of the building but this was for many many years the uh the school has a very interesting history um the school not this building but the school itself is much older than the cathedral uh the first st joseph school was the first catholic school in idaho and that was built in idaho city uh when idaho city was the center of activity in the treasure valley when the mines played out and that was no longer the case the population and the catholic population along with everybody else shifted down to poison where it still is they moved st joseph's school from idaho city down to the location the original location of saint john's church at 9th and bannock and they had that school built or assembled in the parish hall and it was originally called [Music] saint john's heritage hall school and when the cathedral was moved from that old location down at ninth and bannock that's where the yunjin restaurant is now that's where the cathedral was originally uh they moved to school as well and at that time they decided they wanted to get rid of that mouthful saint john parish hall school and so they renamed it st joseph order to honor the original thank you from the united states from the first catholic church okay we're looking now at one of the quote-unquote newer wings well this plot anyway has a pretty interesting history um i think i've got it all down path but if you read the book and you find i'm wrong then you can call me up and say john you're contradicting your own book but it was on this corner a corner of my support the old saint joseph's church was being moved to bishop gloria as i said the directory was the first building on this lot and he wanted to pin down the two diametrically opposed corners so he'd what the plan was to put the turret here as we know that they were moving that church literally moving it the church burned in the process but he still went ahead with the insurance money and he built a church on this corner okay so this is where the first john's cathedral at this location which was located on this corner of 9th and 4th street uh after he got the cathedral finished down at eighth hayes uh this hurt here was converted to classrooms okay and eventually at some point in last year when those classrooms were converted to a gymnasium and in 1946 that gymnasium was torn down and destination

Channel: BoiseCathedral

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Id: WiNvNczSqNU

Length: 20min 1sec (1201 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 03 2021