Deacon Arthur W. Eccleston

Deacon Arthur W. Eccleston, who had served for more than 30 years at Our Lady of Good Counsel parish on his native Staten Island, died there July 4 at his home. He was 78.

A Funeral Mass was celebrated July 9 at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church.

Ordained to the diaconate in 1976, he served for the rest of his life at Our Lady of Good Counsel, where he had been a parishioner for 48 years. He celebrated baptisms and marriages, conducted sacramental preparation, and was a regular homilist, coordinator of Eucharistic ministers and a parish trustee. He visited the sick, the homebound and nursing home residents, and headed the Legion of Mary and the St. Dymphna prayer group.

He also served as a deacon at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mondays. He was a Knight of Malta.

A civil engineer, he directed the planning and construction of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. He was vice president of construction on the Battery Park City Project in Manhattan, where he oversaw planning, design and building.

Earlier he helped in the creation of New York City’s first planning boards. In 1960 he won an award from the mayor for developing a street mapping system that is still used.

Since 1982 he had done consultation in planning, design and construction for institutions including churches, convents, colleges and universities, hospitals and housing and office complexes in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

On Staten Island he was an adviser and consultant to the Daughters of Divine Charity and the boards of Notre Dame Academy, St. Joseph Hill Academy and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

He was the first president of the board of trustees of the former Bayley Seton Hospital on Staten Island and had been chairman of the advisory board to the archdiocesan Department of Health and Hospitals. He was chairman of the board of the Sisters of Charity Home Health Care System and director of the Sisters of Charity Heath Care System.

He was a member of the board of trustees of the former St. Vincent’s Hospital on Staten Island and was board chairman, 1981-1988. In 1990 St. Vincent’s presented him with its St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Award.

He was a guest lecturer at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research. He was a graduate of Polytechnic University of New York.

He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth; two sons, John and Arthur; and four daughters, Theresa Ferraioli, Mary Conway, Anne LaPointe and Eileen Eccleston.

Burial was at St. Peter’s Cemetery on Staten Island.