When officials and friends of Elizabeth Seton Pediatric Center gathered before Thanksgiving for a topping-out ceremony at the center”™s new 165,000-square-foot home rising on a hill in Yonkers, the late William F. “BJ” Harrington was there in spirit. As it often was in a life long dedicated to the practice of law and charitable fundraising, his was a silent but forceful presence there. BJ Harrington, say the sons who carry on his legacy, preferred to be “a background guy.”
He was there in name too. The center”™s 6.5-acre campus in South Westchester Executive Park, now a 100-worker construction site occupied by the trailers of contractors pushing to deliver the $138.5 million project for the center”™s scheduled move from Manhattan in February 2012, has been named Harrington Park in his honor.
So named for now, that is, said Brian Harrington, senior vice president of development at the Seton center in Chelsea and the late Westchester attorney”™s son. If a $10 million donation comes in to the center”™s $25 million capital campaign, the campus will bear that donor”™s name. BJ Harrington, a Seton Pediatric Center trustee who led its capital campaign and had a vital role in bringing the 750-employee center to Yonkers, would want it that way.
“He wanted it to come to Yonkers,” said William P. Harrington, who has succeeded his father as chairman of both the pediatric center”™s capital campaign and Bleakley Platt & Schmidt L.L.P., the White Plains law firm where BJ Harrington practiced for 51 years and was chairman for 35 years. For the Yonkers native and son of a Yonkers firefighter, “Of course you would come to Yonkers. Yonkers is the Garden of Eden, the center of the universe.” The wealthy, successful trial and estate lawyer”™s move to Pound Ridge with his wife and children did not uproot that conviction.
The last stop on a trail of giving
The Harrington Park site formerly was a golf course where BJ Harrington, raised in poverty and guided in life by a Roman Catholic priest after his father”™s premature death, caddied in his youth. “My father used to joke that this was the 14th fairway,” said William Harrington, looking east from the four-story building that will be home to 137 of metropolitan New York”™s most medically fragile children, whose short lives are made fuller at the long-term care center. After a long search for a new location for the center, whose Manhattan lease expires in 2012, he told his son, “”˜We”™re going to build a new hospital in Yonkers.”™ He said, ”˜at the golf course. There”™s property up there,”™” William Harrington recalled.
The elder Harrington joined the Seton center board in the last five or six years of his life. By then, polymyositis, a degenerative muscular disease with symptoms like those of Lou Gehrig”™s disease, had left him physically dependent though mentally vigorous, unable to use his arms and legs and relying on an electric scooter, an easeful mode of transport he discovered on a visit to Disney World with his grandchildren.
“I think because of that scooter, there was a certain level of understanding of what the kids were facing there” at the Seton center, said Brian Harrington. As creative art therapy, center residents paint on paper with their medical scooters”™ tire tracks.
The center was the last stop in his long history of devoted service as a fundraiser and “background guy” on the boards of several Roman Catholic and other institutions in Westchester County and New York City. Among several others, they included St. Agnes Hospital in White Plains and St. Joseph”™s Medical Center in Yonkers; St. Joseph”™s Seminary in Yonkers, for which he raised $20 million; Fordham Law School, his alma mater; Pace Law School in White Plains and Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, Fla.; the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York”™s Inner City Scholarship Fund and St. Patrick”™s Cathedral.
A man who ”˜walked the walk”™
At St. Patrick”™s Cathedral last January, Archbishop Timothy Dolan led the 78-year-old lawyer”™s funeral ceremony that drew more than 1,000 mourners. Harrington had been the archbishop”™s lawyer, as he was too for New York”™s two Roman Catholic cardinals that preceded Dolan.
For the Seton center, “He was doing what he did his whole life,” William Harrington said. “He went out and got all his friends” to donate to a good cause to which he himself generously donated. “He had his guys and gals. If BJ was asking for money, it was worthwhile.”
“It wasn”™t for saving the penguins,” Brian Harrington said.
“It was increasingly involved with children,” said William Harrington, “some facet of children and their parents who needed help with their kids.”
He took friends on tours of the Seton center on Sixth Avenue, formerly the New York Foundling Hospital, and left the hospital”™s distinctive mission and the selfless work of staff there to convince them their donations were needed.
“A lot of people want to be on boards,” said Brian Harrington. “It”™s nice cocktail-party conversation. It was visceral for him.”
“He walked the walk even when he couldn”™t walk,” William Harrington said.
He did the same at the White Plains law firm where he spent his entire career. “He tried a case within a year of his death,” William Harrington said. “It never occurred to my father to stop going to work. He loved his law firm. He loved his partners.”
“He felt as long as he could contribute, he was going to contribute,” Brian Harrington said.
As his body progressively failed, “I think this (Seton center) project probably kept him vibrant until the day he died,” said William Harrington. “He knew when we closed on the property that the hospital was going to get built and it was one of the best days he had.”
With the move to Yonkers, “He got to go home again,” Brian Harrington said.
Charitable fundraising lives on
Though the center”™s capital campaign is $15 million short of its goal, “He will be the reason why this gets built and the money will be raised,” he said. “His legacy will continue to open doors for fundraising. The amount of respect people in the business community had for our dad will help these kids for a long time.”
The Harringtons continue their father”™s charitable fundraising. Along with their work for the Seton center, the brothers raise money for palliative care for terminally ill children through the Each One Counts Foundation founded by Brian Harrington. The Pound Ridge foundation has given grants to 11 pediatric hospitals and public care facilities nationwide and will train 10 pediatric massage therapists in an arrangement with the New York Giants football team.
“I learned at the knee of a master at how to separate people from their money,” William Harrington said. “It”™s not often you”™re given an opportunity to fulfill your father”™s dream. We”™ve been given that opportunity. And we won”™t let it drop.”
