From NCR:
On a quiet stretch of Pineapple Street in Brooklyn Heights, a new sign now hangs above the familiar brownstone facades: Dorothy Day Way.
Dorothy Day, the Catholic activist, journalist, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, was born at 71 Pineapple Street on Nov. 8, 1897. Though she would spend much of her life elsewhere, her birthplace anchors her story in Brooklyn — a New York borough whose history of labor activism, immigration and community organizing mirrors much of what she would later champion.
At the unveiling ceremony on May 2, speakers emphasized that the act of naming a street is never merely symbolic. Kevin Ahern, professor of religious studies at Manhattan University and chair of the Dorothy Day Guild, framed it as a call to action.
“Naming something after an exemplary person has power, has meaning, because naming something is not about just honoring the legacy. It’s about inviting others to be inspired by what they did,” Ahern said. “We hope that this symbolic renaming does more than mark a place. We hope that it inspires people to ask a question, ‘Who is this woman? What did she do? How can I get involved? How can I also be like her?’ ”
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That question — who was Dorothy Day? — is precisely what organizers hope the sign will provoke. Day’s life defies easy categorization. She was a journalist close to Communist and Socialist circles in New York, who chronicled the struggles of workers. She later converted to Catholicism and challenged the church to live up to its teachings and was a lifelong pacifist who opposed war in all forms.
Just two days before this ceremony, another street in East Harlem in Manhattan was renamed “Sister Susanne Lachapelle Way” to honor a woman religious who was a Little Sister of the Assumption. Lachepelle, who died in 2023, spent 45 years serving the local community as a nurse and advocate.
The formal path to Day’s sainthood began in 2000, when the Vatican named her a Servant of God. This milestone launched a rigorous review of her life and heroic virtue. When Day was born, Brooklyn was a hub of immigrant life and labor organizing — forces that deeply shaped her worldview. Through the Catholic Worker Movement, founded in 1933 with Peter Maurin, Day established houses of hospitality that continue to serve the poor today all over the U.S.