Know your Neighborhood: St Augustine's   

St. Augustine Catholic Church, also called Olde St. Augustine's, was consecrated in 1848. The Palladian-style church was designed by Napoleon LeBrun (who also designed the Cathedral-Basilica of Sts. Peter & Paul and the Academy of Music) and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The church was built to replace the Old St. Augustine Church which was completed in 1801 and which housed the Liberty Bell's "Sister Bell". The church was burned down in the anti-Catholic Philadelphia Nativist Riots on May 8, 1844.  The Nativist Riots were a result of rising anti-Catholic sentiment at the growing population of Irish Catholic immigrants (and a carry-over of Protestant-Catholic hatred in Ireland).  The church sued the city of Philadelphia for not providing it with adequate protection. The money awarded to the church went to rebuilding the current church, which broke ground on May 27, 1847. Frescos painted in 1848 by Nicola Monachesi during the church’s reconstruction are now thought to be the oldest existing of their kind in the United States.

Executed in a restrained, formal variant of the Italianate style inspired by Palladian architecture, the church building, with its watertable, quoins, blind arches, modillioned cornice, and other classical details, alludes not only to its Italian roots but also to Christ Church and the other Georgian architecture in the Old City neighborhood. The brick and wood steeple was added by renowned church architect Edwin Durang in 1867.

Organizations founded by the church led to the creation of both Villanova University (which grew out of the St. Augustine Academy) and the Philadelphia Orchestra (Henry Gordon Thunder, Jr., a musical director at St. Augustine organized both the Choral Society of Philadelphia and its instrumental accompanists. These musicians eventually evolved into the Philadelphia Orchestra which was organized in 1900).

On December 11 1992, a powerful storm literally blew the steeple off the church. The St. Augustine bell tower landed on westbound lanes of the Ben Franklin Bridge.  No one was hurt, but the bridge was closed for three days, and with a hole in the roof, many priceless paintings and ceiling frescoes sustained water damage.

Insurance paid for a new steeple, which was erected in 1995.

A strong bond has traditionally existed between the Augustinians and Filipinos. The first Catholic church in the Philippines opened in 1565 and was Augustinian. That bond also exists locally as Filipinos from the tri-state area (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware) have had their own mass at St. Augustine since December 1992, the month that the Santo Niño shrine, an exact replica of a 450-year-old Santo Niño in the Philippines, was dedicated at the church.

In "The Sixth Sense," St. Augustine is the church where Bruce Willis' and Haley Joel Osment's characters meet for the first time.