For sale: Long-term residence. Room for family of six. Prime Soho location with quiet neighbors. Must be dead.
The Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral plans to open its 200-year-old crypt to the public for the first time — selling a six-person family vault in the catacombs for $7 million.
The boneyard is beneath the Mulberry Street church, hidden behind tall wooden doors and 4-foot-thick stone walls.
Whoever buys the prime spot “can be buried with the people that set the Catholic faith in motion in New York,” said crypt keeper Frank Alfieri, director of the centuries-old basilica’s cemetery and columbaria, which hold ashes from cremation.
Maybe they’ll have a better shot at getting into heaven, with the resting place near that of the first bishop of New York, John Connolly, who has been at rest in the basilica since 1825.
For an extra push through purgatory, the offered spot will also be near many other religious figures buried in a clerical vault.
And if any prospective resident wasn’t already getting his or her money’s worth, other neighbors will include John Kelly, who was a leader of Tammany Hall and congressman from New York, and Gen. Thomas Eckert, who was an adviser to Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln wrote his draft of the Emancipation Proclamation in Eckert’s office.
Sealed by solid brass doors, Eckert’s vault features original Edison light bulbs and tiles of the kind used in Grand Central Terminal.
Along with historical interments, the catacombs have seen additions as recently as 2014. Monsignor Nicola Marinacci, who died in September 2014 at age 103, was laid to rest there.
The catacombs were originally reserved for the pious or industrious, such as the Delmonico family.
The clan behind the famed Delmonico’s restaurant asked to reopen their vault, filled with more than 20 bodies, according to Alfieri, but each is sealed for eternity.
Now anyone from the public can be interred in the basilica, as long as they can shell out the cash.
“We thought it would be better served if a Catholic family who wanted to be buried in New York had a place to go,” Alfieri said.
St. Patrick’s prides itself on being home to the only Catholic cemetery in Manhattan and has burials that date to the late 1700s.
The hallowed ground is arguably the most historic in the city for Catholics, Alfieri says, which may be why it’s such an in-demand resting place and still growing.
“A lot of people don’t realize what is just below their feet,” Alfieri said.