NEW YORK — Holy Name‘s new Provincial Office is up and running at 129 West 31st Street in midtown Manhattan — just four blocks from its previous location and adjacent to St. Francis of Assisi Church and parish house.
The office, on the second floor of St. Francis of Assisi Friary, began operations at its new location on July 20.
As before, the staff in the office includes Provincial Minister John O’Connor, Provincial Vicar Dominic Monti, provincial secretary Michael Harlan, and provincial treasurer Dennis Wilson. Also based at this location are the Province’s vocation office, directed byGregory Jakubowicz, and communications office as well as administrative staff including Terry Bartha and Sharon Berrios, who many readers may know as the receptionist who answers the office’s main telephone line.
The main phone number of the Provincial Office has changed to 646-473-0265. The main fax number and e-mail remain the same: 800-420-1078 and hnp@hnp.org
The mailing address of the Provincial Office is:
Holy Name Province – Franciscan Friars
129 West 31st Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10001-3403
With this move to West 31st St, the Provincial Office returns to the site it has occupied for almost a century. When Holy Name Province was established in 1901, the first Provincial Minister, Edward Blecke, continued to reside at St. Bonaventure Friary in Paterson, N.J., the motherhouse of the American Commissariat of the Fulda Province of St. Elizabeth. But when Penn Station opened in 1910, providing direct access by train into New York City, Anselm Kennedy decided to move the Province’s headquarters into the recently constructed (1909) St. Francis Friary, according to Dominic. There it remained until 1989, Dominic said, when a brownstone was purchased on West 88th Street, to serve both as an office and a residence for friars in the Provincial Administration.
In 1996, this property was sold, and the Provincial Office moved into a building behind St. Francis on West 32nd St. Then, due to the upcoming development of the Province’s properties on 31st and 32nd St., the Office was temporarily relocated in 2003 to the West 27th Street location.
The new building is appreciated for many reasons, especially its convenience — to both Manhattan services as well as to other friars.
John O’Connor said he enjoys working in the same building as the friary.
F. Edward Coughlin, who as secretary of the Province from 1996 to 2005 helped plan the development of the new building, pointed out that the St. Francis of Assisi Friary and Provincial Office is just two blocks from Penn Station and very near many subway lines.