New York Herald, Wednesday, 11 October 1871
A VERY WORTHY CAUSE OPENS ITS DOORS ON WORTH STREET
The new Worth Street Children’s Sanctuary was officially opened yesterday by Lady Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott. The Sanctuary, as it is already known by the Five Points residents, is a new-built three-story brownstone on a site with ample room for expansion.
A great deal of thought has gone into making the building both inviting and enlightening for its diminutive clientele. There is a playground fenced off at the back, with a fairy fountain and several benches which, when the newly planted trees mature, will be pleasantly shady in the summer. On the lintel of each of the arched windows the letters of the alphabet are carved in the shape of fantastical animals. Inside, the floors are hard-wearing wood, the walls plastered and brightly painted with alphabets and numerals. The rooms are spacious and bright; the chairs and sofas strewn around are comfortable though upholstered in durable fabric with mounds of cushions; and enticing little corners, too, for those in search of solitude. The bookshelves are consciously pitched at child-friendly heights, with the simplest texts on the bottom shelves. There are practical amenities, too, where the children can bathe, eat heartily, and even take a nap.
The Sanctuary is open to every and any child. No questions are asked, no judgments made. The only rule is that kindness is to be both dispensed and received. The primary aim of the Sanctuary is not to educate or improve morals, but to provide first, much needed relief and second hope. Such aims, New Yorkers may think, sound laudable, yet Lady Margaret, the champion of this excellent cause, struggled to interest any of our great Metropolis’s philanthropists in it. A true Scotswoman, she stubbornly refused to give up the fight, and her grit and determination eventually won her the sympathetic ear of an anonymous donor.
Many hundreds of people amassed yesterday in the bright morning sunshine for the opening of the facility. They were mostly children and their mothers, but there were some fathers, too. While the Herald was given privileged access to the Sanctuary before opening day, reporters from other newspapers and journals were forced to jostle for position with their cameras on the sidewalk. Two notable exceptions were made in Mrs. Jane Croly, better known as the writer Jenny June, and Miss Mary Louise Booth, editor of Harper’s Bazar. Both ladies enjoy long-standing friendship with Lady Margaret, an author of some note herself. Having seen the completed Sanctuary, these ladies of the press have sworn to laud it lavishly in their journals in the hope of engaging their hitherto uninterested readers.
The ceremony itself was brief, with Lady Margaret doing little more than warmly thanking her benefactor and declaring the facility open. There was a great deal of cheering and applause when she cut the ribbon, and a spontaneous chorus of “Happy birthday, Lady Margaret,” it being, serendipitously, twenty-five years since the day of her birth. Then without any more ado, the double doors were thrown wide and the children stampeded through, some laughing and shouting, others glancing over their shoulders to their parents for permission, still others hanging back until Lady Margaret coaxed them in with her generous smile and the offer of cake.
Yesterday was a real turning point for the neglected and ignored children of Five Points. It took a titled immigrant to force us native New Yorkers to look and see what was going on in our own city and to remind us that here in this land, all men, women, and children should be considered equal. We thank the day this charming, self-effacing, and determined young woman chose to make her home in our great Metropolis. There is no need for us to wish her Sanctuary every success, for it was assured the moment the doors were opened. We can only hope it acts as an example, that more places where kindness and hope are distributed without judgment may now spring up for those in need of it most.
Bravo, Lady Margaret!