WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — Broadway and West 174th Street was Peggy Cain’s post and she took her job there seriously.
She worked as a crossing guard at that corner for 45 years, ushering generations of school children across the street before she retired in 2014.
“She felt like if she wasn’t there, the kids couldn’t cross safely,” said NYPD Officer Elise Taitt, of the 33rd Precinct. “She made it her business to be there every day, no matter what.”
Cain died last month at the age of 74. Because she had no immediate family, her “work family” at the 34th and 33rd Precincts, as well as friends of Cain’s from the community, raised money to give her a proper funeral and burial.
Many of them gathered at Ortiz Funeral Home at 4425 Broadway on Thursday to remember Cain.
“She was like a ball of sunshine,” said Jeffrey Kaplan, who knew Cain for decades.
Kaplan, 40, works for the MTA and said he’d seen Cain every morning when she rode the bus from her apartment near 163rd Street to her job.
“She’d always get on and tell a joke or give you a smile,” Kaplan said. “She knew all of the bus drivers and she’d wave to us from her post.”
To some, Cain was also a hero.
After news of her retirement last year spread in a community Facebook group, many shared their memories of having “Miss Peggy” as a crossing guard.
Annie Diaz Rodriguez said that when she was a child, Cain had rescued her from an attempted kidnapping.
“I was about 9 years old and a strange man took my hand while I was crossing and tried to walk away with me,” she said. “Peggy, who knew me for years, knew he was a stranger and chased him screaming until he let go of my hand.”
Cain, who preferred Peggy to her birth name, Henriette, grew up in Washington Heights not far from where she worked as an adult. She attended St. Rose of Lima School on West 164th Street and remained an active member of that parish, friends said.
“She was a woman of very strong faith,” said Maura McGee-McMahon, who knew Cain for 60 years. “You didn’t meet Peggy without getting a blessing from her.”
McGee-McMahon said that Cain still served as an usher at St. Rose during Sunday Mass.
“You’d go in and Peggy would be there and she’d say, ‘Welcome to my church,’” McGee-McMahon said.
When not working or volunteering at the parish, Cain liked to visit some of the remaining Irish pubs in the neighborhood.
Her favorite spot, friends said, was Reynold’s Café, a 50-year-old Irish bar that shut down abruptly in March.
Horatio Forero, 57, knew Cain from the neighborhood and sometimes shared a pint with her at Reynold’s. He said she enjoyed the camaraderie that the pub offered.
“She was Irish and it was an Irish bar, one of the last ones,” Forero said. “It held that old-time community together.”
Although Cain had many connections in the community, she did not have any immediate family. She was an only child who looked after her parents until their deaths and she did not have children of her own, friends said.
After learning of Cain’s death, the 34th and 33rd precincts, which oversee the local crossing guards, stepped in to make sure she’d have a proper funeral and burial.
Together they raised about $3,400, said 34th Precinct Officers Andrea DiNello and Kevin Murphy, who helped spearhead the effort.
Pat Smith, the longtime manager of Reynold’s Café and friends of Cain’s from Irish Eyes Pub, also contributed to the fund, DiNello said.
A GoFundMe campaign set up by Washington Heights resident Ingris Martinez is still raising money to help cover the costs of the burial and a plaque for Cain’s plot.
Cain was also honored with a funeral Mass on Friday at 9:45 a.m. at St. Rose of Lima. She will be buried alongside her parents at Forest Green Park Cemetery in New Jersey on Friday afternoon.
Officer Carman Gomez, from the 33rd Precinct’s Community Affairs department summed up the feelings of the officers from the local precincts.
“We have to take care of her,” Gomez said. “She is a part of our family.”
