EAST VILLAGE — Family, friends, community members and elected officials gathered Thursday morning at the Church of St. Brigid on Avenue B to mourn the passing of beloved community activist Carmen Pabon and to pay tribute to her work that left a mark on the neighborhood.
Pabon, who died on Saturday at the age of 94, leaves behind a legacy of service and humility, said those who knew her, recalling her deep involvement in the community she loved.
Father George Kuhn, who had been the pastor at St. Brigid from 1986 to 1995, returned to the church to deliver the eulogy at Pabon's funeral, and recalled often encountering the activist on Sunday mornings as he returned from the detention center in The Bronx where he served as chaplain to deliver mass.
"Any time I came back, Carmen would be out, in all humility, sweeping the steps of the church, cleaning it up," he said.
"She was irrepeatable, unmatchable."
In addition to her work as a community gardener, Pabon dedicated her time to local charitable organizations such as Loisaida Inc., which serves low-income community members.
She was also active in a coalition to help save the Church of St. Brigid, which was in danger of demolition before being saved by an anonymous donor in 2008.
Pabon's eldest daughter, Bruni Pabon, remembered her mother as a "justice warrior" armed with both "emotional intelligence" and "compassion."
"She's a justice warrior, and I think she was also committed to acts of charity, just because life in in America had been good to her in many ways," said Bruni Pabon after the service. "Talk about the ultimate give-back, pay it forward — that's who she is."
Pabon was honored weeks before her death at the reopening of a long-shuttered community garden on Avenue C she had first founded in the 1970s.
The renovated and renamed Carmen Pabon el Amanecer Garden, previously El Bello Amanecer Garden, opened on Oct. 26 after a decades-long battle to save one of the three plots of land after they were bulldozed to make way for a residential development.
The return of the garden, which served as a sanctuary for the homeless and elderly in the community during the 1970s and '80s, is Pabon's last gift to the neighborhood she helped nourish during more troubling times, said the late activist's eldest daughter.
"I think the garden represents another way for her paying it forward, because now she knows someone else will benefit from it, that it wasn't a shot in the dark kind of experience at a time when people were needy," said Bruni Pabon. "Now it's for kids, and the elderly in the community, moms with children, and I think that's what I really love and appreciate about it. She's become a part of Lower East Side history."
