San Francisco – North Beach: Saints Peter and Paul Church – Pulpit

Image by wallyg
Saints Peter and Paul Church, at 666 Filbert Street directly across from Washington Square, was consecrated in 1924. Known as La cattedrale d’Italia ovest, or The Italian Cathedral of the West, Charles Fantoni and John Porporato’s neo-Gothic design is richly ornamented in Romanesque style and features twin spires that soar 191 feet high. The parish school is unusually situated atop the church itself around its clerestory level and is accessible from stairways under each of its twin towers.

After their civil ceremony in 1954, Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio returned for photographs on the steps Saints Peter and Paul Church. DiMaggio had previously married Dorothy Arnold here on November 19, 1939, but later civilly divorced and therefore could not be remarried in a Catholic church. His funeral was held here on March 11, 1999.

Cecil B. DeMille filmed the workers working on the foundations of the church and used the scene for to show the building of the Temple of Jerusalem in his 1923 film, The Ten Commandments. Director Don Siegel features the Church prominently in scenes from the 1971 movie Dirty Harry.