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BY RACHEL HOLLIDAY SMITH
THE CITY
For decades, young women from all
over the world looking for a safe,
affordable place to live in New York
found a home at Centro Maria.
The large boarding house on West 54th
Street — one of the last women-only homes
in Manhattan — took in tenants for a few
hundred dollars a month, which included
two meals a day prepared by the Catholic
nuns who operate and live in the residence.
Because of the Sisters of Mary Immaculate,
current and former residents say the
house is much more than just a place to stay
— it has been a safe haven and a launch pad
for new friendships and careers.
“The bond that you create in that house
is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced —
ever, ever,” said B.C.E., a previous resident
who moved to Centro Maria in 2007 to
escape an abusive relationship and didn’t
want her full name used. “It’s your family.”
Now the family is being kicked out.
The nuns and residents living there have
been told by the Archdiocese of New York
that they must leave by August 31, several
people with knowledge of the plan told
THE CITY.
They say the Archdiocese had been
threatening to close Centro Maria and sell
the 1910 building — a 30,000-square-foot,
four-story property in Hell’s Kitchen — for
at least a year.
But earlier this month, the sources
said, the Church made a fi nal decision
to shutter the residence and told Centro
Maria’s leadership the sale is needed to
raise funds to pay for hundreds of sexual
abuse lawsuits.
This would not the fi rst time the Church
used its considerable real estate holdings in
New York to fi nance settlements of sexual
abuse cases. In 2017, the Archdiocese took
out a $120 million mortgage on a Madison
Avenue property to fund a settlement
program.
Since the Child Victims Act took effect
last August, about 3,800 lawsuits have
been fi led in New York under the new law.
Earlier this month, Governor Andrew
Cuomo extended the deadline for fi ling for
an additional year, to August 2021.
Catholic Charities, a ministry of the
Archdiocese that owns the Centro Maria
building, did not address questions in connection
with the lawsuits.
The Centro Maria Residence in Hell’s Kitchen, on Aug. 21, 2020.
But in a statement, Philip Dorian, senior
director of federation advancement for
Catholic Charities, said the Sisters told the
organization in early August that “after
reviewing their fi nances and looking at
the impact of COVID-19, they would need
to close their ministry at Centro Maria
Residence.”
Calls and emails by THE CITY to the
Sisters at Centro Maria were not returned.
The Archdiocese of New York, too, did not
return inquiries about the home’s future.
A ‘Calamity’ for the Community
“The nuns feel, and rightly so, they
can’t speak against the Church,” said
Regina Sakrani, a resident of Centro
Maria between 1977 and 1980 who has
organized annual fundraisers at the home
for years.
“They live their lives walking the walk,”
she said. “As a former resident, as someone
who has had close associations with Centro,
it saddens me. It pains me. I feel it is
such, such, such a loss.”
The decision has been a gut punch to the
entire Centro Maria community, according
to Natasha Lewis, a lawyer and women’s
rights advocate who lived at the home
while working as an intern at the United
Nations in 2010. She now lives in London,
but stays in touch with the Centro Maria
family through a WhatsApp chat group of
dozens of the home’s alums and current
staff.
There, she said, women brainstormed
ways to try to save the home. Many wrote
letters to the Pope and other Church
offi cials.
Few wanted to speak publicly about the
situation, but Lewis said she felt the need
to talk about a place that was “safe and
accessible, particularly for women of color.”
Everyone was welcome, regardless of their
religion. Lewis, a New Zealander originally
from India, felt at home with the Spanishspeaking
nuns and housemates from all
corners of the globe. Young dancers at
the Alvin Ailey studio, located two blocks
away, often rented rooms.
“To me, the symbolism of closing down
a place that is for women and girls in need,
that is run by women who’ve dedicated
their lives to helping other women and
girls, in order to pay the legal fees of men
who have abused children, and abused
women, is despicable,” Lewis said.
Last Goodbyes
On August 15, the last remaining Centro
PHOTO BY HIRAM ALEJANDRO DURÁN/THE CITY
Maria residents took a goodbye outing to
Tarrytown “in the face of the imminent
closure of the residence,” a post from the
residence’s blog said, written in Spanish.
On Friday, movers carried boxes and
belongings out of the house into a moving
truck. On the residence’s Facebook page,
dozens of people posted their condolences
about the closure.
Hiram Alejandro Durán/THE CITYMovers
carry boxes out of Centro Maria,
Aug. 21, 2020.
Lewis knows it is likely too late to save
the house, but she hopes the Church leadership
at least give more time to the Sisters,
especially the elderly nuns who have called
Centro Maria home for decades.
“I fi nd it extremely heartbreaking to
think that right after this pandemic — and
the huge crisis that New York has been
through, and the U.S. and the world is
going through — that they would be displaced,
particularly the ones who’ve lived
there for many years,” she said.
This story was fi rst published on Aug.
24, 2020, by THE CITY, an independent,
nonprofi t news outlet dedicated to hardhitting
reporting that serves the people of
New York.
4 August 27, 2020 Schneps Media