Jeff Walcott   Well wishers to Rabbi Jerome Malino walk along the path on Deer Hill Avenue that was dedicated to Malino’s life in Danbury. Rabbi Malino, who died last year at the age of 90, used to frequently walk along Deer Hill Avenue during his life.

DANBURY — As a child, Frances Malino, now 63, walked after school on New Street to the corner of West Street and Deer Hill Avenue.

Waiting at the corner was her father, Rabbi Jerome Malino. Their afternoon would include a trip to the old Mitchell’s Dairy for lunch or ice cream and a city block’s walk to the United Jewish Center on Deer Hill Avenue.

"That was one of my happiest memories because it was fun to be with him — a quiet moment and a personal moment,” said Malino.

A rabbi at the United Jewish Center for more than 60 years, Jerome Malino died last year at the age of 90.

On Friday, 100 city residents looked on as the walk Frances and her older brother, John, shared with their father was dedicated as "the Rabbi Jerome R. Malino Memorial Walk.”

"It’s a testimony to Danbury too,” said Frances, who grew up in Danbury and now lives in Boston, "that they would see my father as someone who belonged to all of Danbury.”

John Malino, who lives in North Carolina, said the walk is a great symbol of the city’s affinity for religion. He remembered his father walking down the street regularly to guest speak at the First Congregational Church on Deer Hill. Four churches now grace the street.

"Rabbi Malino was a spiritual person for all people, not just people from the United Jewish Center,” said Mayor Mark Boughton at Friday’s ceremony. "He was that kind of person — truly a Danbury person.”

In front of City Hall on Deer Hill Avenue, the mayor unveiled a prototype of a monument dedicated to Malino. Just up the street in the front of the United Jewish Center stands a second prototype.

Granite monuments, estimated at a total of $11,000, will take the place of the prototypes when they are completed in several months. The monuments are gifts to the city from the Marcus family that owns Marcus Dairy on Sugar Hollow Road.

Boughton remembered Malino as a community leader and scholar who gave great advice.

"He recognized all the challenges we face in our community" and he enriched the educational, musical and interfaith character of the city. This walk follows a path that Rabbi Malino walked every day,” Boughton said.

"His name is written large in our community and I’m pleased to see it will also be written on this walk,” said Sam Deibler, former executive director of Association of Religious Communities. "Jerome Malino built pathways all over this town.”

The Rev. Albert Audette of St. Peter’s Church in Danbury remembered when he first met Malino in 1993. He said he wanted to meet a great rabbi — and he did.

"He won his heart into my parish,” said Audette, adding that people who met Malino felt they knew them all their lives. "He was truly a man of God. His heart is the legacy he left.”

Rabbi Robert Levine, a rabbi at the center for 13 years before moving to New York, said the walk is a great symbol of someone who worked hard to bring together people of different religions. He said Malino believed his faith did not have the sole path to truth and that it was combination of faiths that lead to truth.

Levine described, using Malino’s own words, what it was like to be on this street and in this community: "The reward has been worth the effort.”