MYSTERY PHOTO: Graffiti

You can find graffiti all over the place these days, but we wonder where you think this particular manifestation is located?  The only hint we’ll give you is this is somewhere in Charleston or North Charleston.  Which and where?  Send your best guess to editor@charlestoncurrents.com.  And don’t forget to include your name and the town in which you live.  And if you’ve got a clever mystery photo for our readers, send it to the same address (Try to stump us!)

Our previous Mystery Photo

Our most recent past mystery, “Really old photo” is a photo of the ruins of the Cathedral of St. John and St. Finbar on Broad and Legare streets which was destroyed by fire in December 1861.  According to the Library of Congress, the photographer was George Stacy.

Only five readers correctly identified the photo.  Congratulations to these sleuths:  George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; Chris Brooks of Mount Pleasant; Cristel Newton of North Charleston; and Judy Hines of Charleston.

Graf told us that the cathedral, which was the first Roman Catholic cathedral in Charleston, started construction in 1850..  The cathedral was consecrated on April 6, 1854. 

“It was destroyed on December 11, 1861, in a fire that ravaged much of Charleston. A new cathedral—the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, built on the same site-was started in 1890. It opened in 1907 and was completed in 2010 with the addition of the long-anticipated steeple.  

“The first bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston (previously the diocese of the Carolinas and Georgia), Bishop John England (of County Cork, Ireland), originally conceived of the cathedral. In 1821, he purchased the site of a garden in Charleston called “New Vauxhall”. A house was on the lot, and on Dec. 30, 1821, Bishop England blessed it as a temporary chapel and named it in honor of St. Finbar, the patron saint of Cork. He then set about planning and raising funds for a cathedral for the see.  

“The cathedral was designed by Patrick Charles Keely (of County Tipperary, Ireland) in the highly ornate Gothic Style, as a 219-foot-tall structure topped with a steeple and bronze cross. The Cathedral of St. John and St. Finbar was, like its successor the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, clad in brownstone from Connecticut.”

• Send us a mystery:  If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!)   Send it along to  editor@charlestoncurrents.com.