Church of St. Francis of Assisi Dedicates New Workers’ Chapel

Call it the multiplication—and celebration— of labor.

On Wednesday November 13, hundreds of union men and women, a small number of politicians and others joined Father Brian Jordan at the Church of St. Francis Assisi, 135 West 31st Street, for a noontime dedication mass for the parish new Workers Chapel,

The chapel will serve as a place of prayer, worship, and solitude for New York City’s construction workers.

Besides Father Jordan, the event was presided over by Gary LaBarbera, President of the Building and Construction Trades Council (BCTC) of Greater New York and of the New York State Building Trades. Among the BCTC constituent unions present were Laborers Local 1010; Concrete Workers Local 6A; Painters and Allied Trades District Council 9; Heat and Frost Insulators Local 12; Plumbers Local No. 1; and others.

This designation of the workers chapel is in general accord with Church of St. Francis Assisi’s tradition of social beneficence, including breadlines and welcoming of gay and lesbian Catholics in advance of the Archdiocese of New York as a whole. The church, run by the Franciscan order, is deeply involved in homeless issues and operates three supportive housing residences in Chelsea.

The service itself was brisk and lively including a procession with drums and bagpipes by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Father Jordon an effective speaker, regaling the audience with tales of his youth as a Brooklyn high school football player and the lessons he learned on the gridiron there. Jordan also mentioned Father Mychal Judge, the parish priest and FDNY chaplain who died and was designated victim #1 at Ground Zero on 9/11. After the terror attacks, Father Jordan himself spent months at the World Trade Center site.

While not explicitly a political event, the Workers Chapel dedication was implicitly very much a political event—albeit a rather more complex one than that suggested but he presence of four Democratic solons: New York Attorney General Letitia James; State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli; Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine; and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.

Governor Kathy Hochul, although slated to appear in pre-event announcements, wasn’t present, nor was her absence mentioned.

Not for the first time, this put AG James in an interesting position.

Though she and Hochul made a joint appearance a week earlier on November 6—the day after national Democratic Party slaughter that was Election Day—to announce their so-called Empire State Freedom Initiative to protect New Yorkers from “threats from a Trump Administration, including reproductive rights, civil rights, immigration, gun safety, and the environment, among other issues,” the state’s two most powerful women would best be described as “frenemies.”

James it will be recalled was herself a candidate for the Governor’s seat that Hochul now holds, only to soon withdraw from the 2022 race when it became apparent the Democratic party’s post-Andrew Cuomo machinery—and money—was backing the then Lt. Governor Hochul.

Still ambitious, James achieved her greatest renown to date by successfully prosecuting President Trump on civil (not criminal) fraud charges in September 2023. The conviction, as well as Judge Arthur Engeron’s subsequent penalty of more than $450 million against Trump for allegedly defrauding bankers and insurers about his wealth remains under appeal.

Cheered in some quarters, James’ triumph was lambasted as prosecutorial overreach in others, including a now notorious incident at an FDNY promotion ceremony on March 7, 2024, in Brooklyn, where the Attorney General was met with a chorus of boos and pro Trump chants from some firefighters in an otherwise somber ceremony.

While critics derided the jeering as unprofessional, the reaction was prophetic: rather than being hailed as a hero of Empire State justice, James, the politician, was scorned by union labor, and municipal labor at that.

Though James for her part, maintained her dignity, then FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh seethed, sparking even greater department discord. Kavanagh resigned for unstated reasons in July.

This wasn’t James first confrontation with divisive labor sentiment.

As a City Council Member from Brooklyn in the 2000s, James was a leading opponent of Barclays Arena and the attached Atlantic Yards redevelopment project, calling it a “land grab by a powerful developer.” While there were legitimate reasons to take this position—the project was devised in questionable back room dealing including the state’s use of Eminent Domain—this stance put her against the interests of organized labor, the building trades in particular.

But people, positions, and priorities change.

People are also complex, and today the Attorney General can be both strongly pro-labor, and strongly anti-Trump— even while many building trade workers themselves are pro-Trump. Indeed, if one wanted look for pro-Trump bumper stickers or other displays of “MAGA” love in Manhattan, the first place to look is among the vehicles parked near any major construction site.

That most union leaders are themselves Democrats—and that the Democrats are vastly more supportive of unions in general than Republicans—only compounds these ironies.

Had Kamala Harris won the presidency James would likely have been on the short list of U.S. Attorney General candidates.

Instead, an uncertain future ahead of her, James was here, at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. This is part of what she said, though the echo of the cathedral made some of her words indistinct:

“My faith reminds me that Jesus was carpenter, a stone mason. He too built cornerstones, and then with his hands, secured by the foundation of his beliefs and values... so whether it be on your job, or at home, or in your communities, we have all faced challenging times...

We tirelessly work to build and protect and care for this great state. You know this better than anyone. And today we come together as one, with our leaders and labor and public service. And we say to you, thank you...

“This chapel offers a vessel with which our workers can find strength, and solace. But more than that, is a shared symbol of our belief that no challenge is too great, no burden too difficult, if we stand together.”