25. St. Jude´s Cathedral

There’s something fitting about St. Jude’s being the cathedral in Newcastle, and the church with the largest congregation, since St. Jude is renowned as the patron saint of lost causes. The neighborhood itself is an outlying near-slum, a lower-class, blue-collar neighborhood with an anachronistic, turn-of-the-century preponderance of ethnic immigrants, such as Italians, Irish and a handful of Jews. The roads here are in poor repair, and the streets out in front of the houses smell like cooking food. Local commerce is predominantly ethnic grocery stores, mechanics’ garages and bars. The church itself is the center of the neighborhood, a place where sometimes arguing neighbors can put aside their grief and unite in worship of God.

Background

St. Jude’s is the neighborhood that never wanted to bring itself into the 20th century, much less the 21st. Although the houses are new — a massive restoration project begun in the mid-1970s was finally completed in 1989 — the attitudes aren’t, and many of the homes belong to the same families that owned them when the neighborhood was new.

Alternative Name(s)

Cathedral

Type

District

Location under

New Castle