As we wind down summer in the Pacific Northwest, specifically on ferry serviced islands with no bridges, we pray the ferry service will be kinder, ie. more on time and more crews. But the news this past week is of another ferry far from us, but dear to our hearts, as it is named after a dear friend of our Abbey in CT. (She was "God-mother" to our OLR foundress, Mother Prisca, who helped her found Rochester, NY Catholic Worker Center)
New York has three new 4,500-passenger ferry boats, the first new boats added to the fleet since 2006, and one is named after DOROTHY DAY. They were funded with a combination of federal, city, and other grant funds.
The Dorothy Day will be the third Staten Island Ferry named for a woman. The first, which was decommissioned in the 1970s, was named for Revolutionary War hero Mary Murray. The second, which still operates overnight, is named for Staten Island photographer Alice Austen.
“Dorothy Day lived a life of tremendous selflessness and service. I can think of no greater way to honor her beloved legacy than by having her name on this new ferry boat connecting Manhattan and Staten Island,” said past Mayor Bill de Blasio. “Day loved Staten Island, and this naming will allow others to learn of her inspiring work as a brave activist and journalist. I thank Day’s surviving family for doing keeping the memory of her work alive, and hope every New Yorker can draw inspiration from her legacy.’”
Servant of God Dorothy was born in Brooklyn in 1897 and spent years on the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village. She moved to Staten Island in the 1920s, where she raised her only daughter in the Spanish Camp shore section. Following her work co-founding the Catholic Worker Movement, which included offering food and shelter to those in need on the Lower East Side during the Great Depression and creating the Catholic Worker newspaper, she returned to Staten Island to operate a cooperative farm after 1950 in Pleasant Plains on Bloomingdale Road with French philosopher Peter Maurin. Dorothy later became best known for her pacifism and work on behalf of the oppressed and public support of striking farm workers.
She spent most summers in her later life in the Huguenot neighborhood on Staten Island. Following her death in 1980, Dorothy was buried at ResurrectionCemetery in Pleasant Plains on the Island.
“How providential that the ferry from lower Manhattanto Staten Island should be named after a brave, loving woman who cherished both those areas of our city and the people who live there,” said Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York. “How appropriate that a ferry transporting people would honor a believing apostle of peace, justice, and charity who devoted her life to moving people from war to peace, from emptiness to fullness, from isolation to belonging.”
The Dorothy Day is “ready for passage” having left Eastern Shipbuilding Group’s Port St. Joe shipyard in Panama City, Fla. on Friday after being inspected and certified.
The Dorothy Day will be towed by Sarah Dann of Ocean Towing and is scheduled to dock in New York City in approximately 14 days, weather permitting. This makes Dorothy Day due for arrivals on or about Friday 16th September.
