Sunday, March 07, 2010

A Church Too Loved to Have Been Closed

In today's New York Times, Not Your Banks’ Bailouts: Stores Too Loved to Fail by Jim Dwyer documents the ongoing saga of a Lower East Side neighborhood coming to the rescue of Ray's, a 24-hour establishment that apparently anchors the neighborhood over there. Ray's story has been chronicled in real time on a daily basis in Bob Arihood's blog Neither More Nor Less.


Salient quotes:


"His friends see injustice, not debt, and will fight. As the menu for the new delivery project says: “How could we sit idly while Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks slowly killed everything we cherished about our community?”


And there is a matter of loyalty to someone who was willing to cut kids a break on a plate of fries, said Arianna Gil: “He’s an icon of our childhood.”


In February of 2007, Bob Arihood came to our candlelight vigil on the evening of our closure and posted some fine photos in which the faces say it all.


On the East side there is a store too loved to fail. On the West side there is a church that did not fail, a church too loved to close which, nonetheless remains closed. May our friends see injustice and continue to fight and pray for the restoration of our parish to the west side community,


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