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OLV Senior Neighborhood

55 Melroy Avenue
Lackawanna, NY 14218

We made a promise to the Lackawanna Community and we kept it – we found a great re-use for the former Our Lady of Victory (OLV) Hospital!

Change is hard, but change also helped us to embrace new ideas – Catholic Health has proven to be leader in innovative care. When faced with the difficult decision of closing this hospital in 1999, we turned it into something amazing! Today we stand proud after investing $27 million in a project to help our moms and dads, aunts and uncles, and friends and neighbors.

News

• Memory Cafe Now Open; Designed to Provide Stress Relief and Entertainment for Those with Alzheimer's Disease – July 2, 2012

New Hope for an Aging Building

As part of a tradition of caring that spans more than 150 years, Catholic Health is taking healthcare into the 21st century with the Our Lady of Victory (OLV) senior neighborhood, a comprehensive, state-of-the-art living facility for senior citizens.

Developed at the OLV Hospital campus, the OLV senior neighborhood offers a range of senior housing options, a nursing home, and the LIFE program for the elderly, complemented by on-campus shopping, a chapel, social activities, medical care, and other amenities in the hub of the neighborhood – Main Street.

Main Street

Main Street serves as a central hub for the campus, bringing together tenants from the Victory Ridge Apartments, residents from the Mercy Nursing Facility at OLV, and participants of LIFE – Living Independently For Elders, along with family members, staff and the local community.

Main Street includes the following:

• Gift shop
• Larger chapel
• Cinema
• Café
• Blood-draw laboratory 
• Museum honoring the hospital and its medical staff

Relaxing on Main Street

OLV Main Street Museum

OLV Chapel

Father Baker Gaslight Park

Anyone from the community can enjoy a leisurely stroll on lighted sidewalks along the rebuilt Baker Alley from Melroy Avenue to South Park. You will pass a new park that surrounds one of the historic Father Baker gas wells drilled in 1891; the gas well continues to provide natural gas to portions of the OLV Institutions.

The path is lined with trees and allows you the opportunity to enjoy new gardens planted by a Catholic Health committee.

Central to the green space is a garden area featuring a statue of St. Joseph that honors the Sisters of Saint Joseph, who worked tirelessly in caring for those in the Lackawanna community for 80 years. The Sisters were the inspiration, with Dr. M.A. Sullivan and Father Baker, to open the OLV Hospital in 1919.

At South Park Avenue, you’ll find the new NFTA bus turnaround across the street from the Erie and Buffalo Botanical Gardens.

Father Baker Gaslight Park and Walking Trail was completed in September 2008. This portion of the Neighborhood was funded by the New York State Department of Transportation, the City of Lackawanna, the Lackawanna Community Development Corporation and the OLV Renaissance Corporation.

How You Can Help

Opportunities exist for the community to partner in this wonderful initiative and leave a legacy. For more information, visit the Continuing & Home Care Foundation.