I stepped out of the cab on a beautiful fall day in New York City and into Union Square, my first stop on a walking pilgrimage visiting the places important to Dorothy Day. I had my recording equipment, my headphones, and shoes that would eventually get me to every borough in New York except Brooklyn (next trip, I’ll go there too).
Day was a radical peace activist, mother, journalist, and founder with Peter Maurin of the Catholic Worker movement in 1933, which still publishes the Catholic Worker newspaper (available for one penny). They also launched a network of houses of hospitality that feed and provide shelter for the poor. Day, who died in 1980, is up for sainthood in the Catholic Church. You’ll hear my journey on this week’s show, “On Pilgrimage With Dorothy Day.”
Because TTBOOK is a one-hour show, I couldn’t include all my stops in this episode, so I’ll take you through more here. My guides were third-generation Catholic Worker Deirdre Cornell, who knew Day through her parents and grandparents, retired attorney Alex Avitable, and retired physician Dr. Joe Sclafani, who is especially focused on finding miracles.
Union Square was where the first issue of The Catholic Worker was distributed on May Day, 1933. The site of many anti-war protests, Day spoke there supporting conscientious objectors in 1965. We continued to St. Francis Xavier Church, where a large tapestry featuring Day hangs over the entryway, among other activists and spiritual leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr., Dan Berrigan, Rosa Parks and Thomas Merton.
Next we headed to the site of the Women’s House of Detention, where Day was imprisoned after being arrested for civil disobedience. It’s now a garden, though they hold tours with details about the prison and the famous and infamous women who spent time there.
We visited the site of a saloon called The Golden Swan next, where Day frequented the back room, called “The Hell Hole.” Late night patrons were intellectuals, writers (including her friend Eugene O’Neill, who based his play "The Iceman Cometh" on the Hell Hole), and artists of the day, along with gangsters and thieves. We then visited Washington Square Park, full of chess competitors and saxophone players, where Day was part of an anti-war protest and was arrested, and sent to the aforementioned Women's House of Detention.
We moved on to two ongoing Catholic Worker houses, St. Joseph’s House, and the bustling, busy Maryhouse, where Day lived, and died. Her room there is still full of her books, pictures, and mementos. In the Bronx, we visited Manhattan University, which houses the Dorothy Day Guild, which works on her canonization process and is the site for students to plan social justice projects. Eventually we made our way to ride the Dorothy Day ferry, commissioned in 2022, which takes thousands of people back and forth from Manhattan to Staten Island, where Day once had a cottage. The ferry voyages past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
Just before I started the exploration, I spoke with Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin, who he told me: “Visiting a saint’s locale is like going to the childhood house of a friend. You feel like you understand the friend, but when you see their house and their family, you understand them much better.” I hope listening to this show will help us all understand this complicated, flawed person, and what it means to be a modern saint.
– Shannon