Locals call the church in front of you the Black Basilica; its full name is the Minor Basilica of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception. This Black Catholic parish in downtown Norfolk is the oldest parish in the Diocese of Richmond and is called "The Mother Church of Tidewater Virginia. Its roots reach back to 1791, when the parish began as Saint Patrick Church, founded by French Catholics fleeing the French Revolution and joined by some of the earliest Irish Catholic immigrants to the United States.
The first church edifice was built in 1842; the building you see now was constructed in 1857–1858 as a rectangular stuccoed brick church. Your eyes are drawn to the centrally located, three-stage tower topped with a spire—an unmistakable skyline gesture. Notice also the contributing rectory on the property: a three-story, rectangular brick building in the Late Gothic Revival style.
This place has been recognized over the years—listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, named a minor basilica in 1991, and the associated Saint Mary's Catholic Cemetery was added to the Register in 2001. Your eye can absorb the façade, the tower, and the rectory in turn.