[No refunds kid! Photo by Derek Berg]
The grandmother who makes the rice and beans — a great-grandmother, actually — was visible through Casa Adela’s window, with its gold script proclaiming “Authentic Puerto Rican Cuisine Since 1976.” She is Adela Ferguson, 79, and she was checking the timer on a 1950s-era rotisserie oven, with eight whole chickens, golden and peppery spices flecking the crisping skin as they rotated slowly — seven more minutes until perfection.
Ms. Hennessy, who lives nearby at the Catholic Worker’s Maryhouse when she is in New York, said she felt “a disconnect” between the drive to canonize her grandmother and the decision to close her church. She said she hoped a way could be found to honor Day and her legacy, perhaps using the vacant rectory building, if not the church itself.
"In the East Village, with all the affluence, the party atmosphere and the materialism, we still have poverty," Ms. Hennessy said. "They are doing their best to hide it, but if there was a shrine dedicated to the history of her work, that might be more helpful. It would raise the question of economic refugees."
Help find Vivian! @evgrieve pic.twitter.com/sKHWqn3To1
— EdenBrower (@edenbrower) June 26, 2015
