When I lived downtown on East Jones Street, the sight of St. Vincent’s Academy students walking briskly over the cobblestones on their way to class was a hallmark of my morning dog walks. As my old pug and I crossed Madison Square and hooked a right at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, we passed under the bronze likeness of Sisters of Mercy founder Mother Catherine McAuley, one of the few statues in the Historic District honoring a woman, behind the wrought-iron gates of the convent and academy on Liberty Street.
