Stephen Rex Brown The Cabrini Center.

This week, dozens of residents and employees of the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation will receive bottles of holy water with which to bless their new homes or offices.

The bottles are a parting gift to the 85 remaining residents of the nursing home at Fifth Street and Avenue B who will have to vacate by July 1 so that the building’s new owner, Benjamin Shaoul’s Magnum Realty Group, can go ahead with redevelopment plans.

Last month, Cabrini closed the adult daycare center that it operated on the Lower East Side, which gave nearly 40 seniors and some adults with developmental disabilities a place to eat, socialize and receive medical attention as needed during the day. Lorraine Horgan, a spokesperson for Cabrini, said that those people had been easily transferred to other programs; but a group of board members and employees is still working to ensure that English lessons, weekly food allotments, and legal services remain available to the 16,000 people who use yet another program, Cabrini Immigrant Services, each week. Read more…