Notre Dame, the university, was once devastated by fire, too

As people around the world watched images of the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in horror, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana received about 5,000 tweets, reposts or questions about whether the fire was at the university, or whether there was a connection between the university and the cathedral, writes Anemona Hartocollis for The New York Times.

“So yeah, there was a little bit of confusion,” said Dennis Brown, a university spokesperson. “That’s why we issued a tweet yesterday [15 April] afternoon, to clarify that we were safe, but that our prayers were with those who had been impacted in Paris.”

In fact, the university is not affiliated with the church in Paris. The institution’s full name is the University of Notre Dame du Lac, the University of Our Lady of the Lake. However, in a statement of solidarity with the people of France, the university’s president, the Reverend John I Jenkins, noted that the Notre Dame campus, near South Bend, had itself been destroyed by fire on 23 April 1879. Jenkins said the university would donate US$100,000 toward the cathedral’s restoration, and would toll the bells of its basilica 50 times on Tuesday evening, like a number of other churches around the world, to honour the cathedral.
Full report on The New York Times site