Catholic Health System Renames Harlem Intersection to Honor Cardinal Cooke

ArchCare will spend $60 million to improve an East Harlem health center.

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By Evelyn Nam and Jordan Pike

ArchCare, one of the nation’s largest Catholic health systems, today unveiled a street sign designating the corner of 106th Street and Fifth Avenue as Terence Cardinal Cooke Way, in honor of the seventh archbishop of New York, who died in 1983.  It will also invest $60 million in the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center at that location.

“This is God’s work happening here on the corner every day,” said State Assemblyman Robert Rodriguez during the brief renaming ceremony that gathered around thirty-five people. “TCC, for whom we are renaming the street, is an icon.”

“Cardinal Terence Cooke was a humble and modest man, highly sensitive to the needs of others,” said Michelle Cruz, deputy chief of staff for City Councilmember Diana Ayala. “He advocated for the poor and suffering residents of New York.”

Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York, blesses the newly-named Terence Cardinal Cooke Way.

With the $60 million investment, “the first thing we’re doing is completely replacing and rebuilding the specialty hospital” within the health center, said Scott LaRue, ArchCare’s president and CEO. “Then we’re investing in the infrastructure — the elevators, fire alarm systems, brand new kitchen. We’re re-doing the space for individuals with Huntington’s disease.”

ArchCare provides care for more than 9,000 seniors, as well as low-income residents and patients with special needs, regardless of faith. Its programs include health plans, adult daycare, nursing homes and assisted living facilities, short-term rehabilitation, home care, hospice, an acute care specialty hospital and services for people with Huntington’s disease, HIV/AIDS and developmental disabilities.

Cardinal Cooke, ordained archbishop in 1968, served until his death in 1983.  President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984. The New York Times 1983 obituary said that “Cardinal Terence Cooke rose to a great height in the Roman Catholic Church without losing the simplicity and soul of a village priest.”

“He himself, we only discovered later, suffered from painful cancer for most of the years he was the archbishop,” said Timothy Cardinal Dolan, who has held that position since 2009. “He eloquently reminded us that life is not any less sacred, even when it is vulnerable, suffering or on the cross.”

The Archdiocese of New York includes about 2.8 million Catholics in 10 counties. It has more than 300 churches in 293 parishes, a decrease from 380 parishes due to mergers from 2014 and 2015.

(Featured photo of Archbishop Dolan at the ceremony and other photos by Evelyn Nam)

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