Bayley Seton Hospital (BSH) was a hospital in
Stapleton,
Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey b ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. It was a part of the Bayley Seton campus of
Richmond University Medical Center but is permanently closed.
The campus was established in 1831 as a
U.S Marine Hospital, and the current main building was constructed in the 1930s. In 1981, it became a private hospital.
Location
Bayley Seton is located on a , 12-building site in the
Clifton
Clifton may refer to:
People
* Clifton (surname)
* Clifton (given name)
Places
Australia
*Clifton, Queensland, a town
** Shire of Clifton
*Clifton, New South Wales, a suburb of Wollongong
* Clifton, Western Australia
Canada
* Clifton, Nova Sc ...
and
Stapleton areas of the
North Shore of the
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
Borough of
Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey b ...
. The complex is bounded by Bay Street to the east,
Vanderbilt Avenue
Vanderbilt Avenue is the name of three thoroughfares in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island. They were named after Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877), the builder of Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan.
...
to the south, Tompkins Avenue to the west, and residential development to the north. The block, with portions sold off over time, also includes Public School 721, the Richmond Center for Rehab & Specialty Care Center, the
New York Foundling
The New York Foundling, founded in 1869 by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity, is one of New York City's oldest and largest child welfare agencies. The Foundling operates programs in the five boroughs of New York City, Rockland County, a ...
Hospital Staten Island, and an unaffiliated geriatric center.
History
Marine Hospital
On October 1, 1831, Staten Island's first hospital, the Seaman's Retreat, was opened here by the
Marine Hospital Service
The Marine Hospital Service was an organization of Marine Hospitals dedicated to the care of ill and disabled seamen in the United States Merchant Marine, the U.S. Coast Guard and other federal beneficiaries. The Marine Hospital Service evolv ...
, to serve retired naval and commercial sailors. Three of these original colonnaded structures remain, dating from the 1830s and 1840s. The Marine Hospital Service provided medical treatment to naval personnel.
On May 6, 1857, the neighboring
New York Marine Hospital
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
(also the "Quarantine") in
Tompkinsville, about north along the shore, was attacked by a local mob, fearful of the mostly immigrant detainees. The next year, on September 1, 1858, a mob again attacked the hospital, burning it down in what became known as the
Staten Island Quarantine War.
A new quarantine center was created on
Swinburne Island (a fill off the South Shore of Staten Island, about south of
Fort Wadsworth). In 1874, some of these resources were transferred to the Marine Hospital Service buildings at what is now the Bayley Seton campus. The Seaman's Retreat was also housed there; when it moved around three miles (5 km) northwest in 1883, it became
Sailors' Snug Harbor. At that point, the entire complex was operated by the U.S. Marine Hospital Service.
National Institutes of Health
With this move came a greater need for the study of disease. In 1887, 28-year-old officer Dr. Joseph J. Kinyoun established a single-room Laboratory of Hygiene for Bacteriological Investigation on the top floor of the Marine Hospital, where it remained until 1891. The building still stands and is part of Bayley Seton Hospital. In 1902, the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...
passed legislation to fund the laboratory and move it to Washington where, as a result of the 1930
Ransdell Act, it became the
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the lat ...
.
Later history
In the 1930s, President
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
began a campaign to construct and maintain
U.S. Public Health Service Hospitals, to serve the military, veterans, and the general public. As part of this process, the current main building of Bayley Seton was constructed. The Staten Island Public Health Service Hospital was built as a five- to seven-story hospital, in a
Mayan revival style. Until 1981, it operated
inpatient and outpatient services, emergency, surgery, and rehabilitation wards. Military installations at
Fort Wadsworth,
Fort Hamilton (just across the narrows in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
), the
Staten Island Homeport,
Miller Field Air Station, as well as air, naval and Coast Guard installations built during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
assured a large military and veteran population for the hospital.
In 1980, President
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
announced plans to close or sell all such hospitals, and despite local protest, Staten Island Public Health Service Hospital was sold to the
Sisters of Charity of New York, a Catholic medical and social services system.
Bayley Seton
The Sisters of Charity renamed the hospital Bayley Seton, after their order’s founder, New York's
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton. The renamed hospital expanded its campus buildings to include the Saint Elizabeth Ann outpatient clinics, and turned over part of the campus to the
New York Foundling Hospital.
In the 1990s ''Amethyst House'', a women's Drug Abuse Treatment center was opened, as well as an Alcoholism Acute Care Unit on the 3rd floor, a St. Vincent's Nursing School on the fifth floor, social service agencies in other buildings, including the Richmond Center for Rehab & Specialty Care Center, hospital inpatient drug rehab treatment services, services for co-occurring mental and substance abuse disorders, a comprehensive psychiatric emergency program), and the center for a mental health client dispersed housing and in-community employment program.
Saint Vincent's
In 2000, Sisters of Charity turned over Bayley Seton (along with their main Staten Island hospital) to
Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center
Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers of New York d/b/a as Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers (Saint Vincent's, or SVCMC) was a healthcare system, anchored by its flagship hospital, St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, locally referred to a ...
, which already included the Sisters' Manhattan and Westchester County hospitals, to create Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers New York. Facing financial difficulties almost immediately, Bayley saw around half its services closed, including its emergency room, pharmacy, surgery, and most medical clinics.
After filing for bankruptcy in 2003, Saint Vincent's spun off or closed almost half its sites, including selling another hospital on Bard Avenue to
Bayonne Medical Center, becoming
Richmond University Medical Center in 2007. Most psychiatric and addiction services were retained, as were outpatient clinics for geriatrics, patients with HIV infection, military and family health services, and mother and baby care.
At the beginning of 2008, Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers and Richmond University Medical Center negotiated a deal to share Bayley Seton. , there were an estimated 1,500 patients who used the Bayley Seton facilities regularly, and as of 2004, the hospital employed approximately 550 staff, just more than half the 990 employed in 2000.
Six smaller buildings were closed, staff consolidated, and a deal was struck whereby at the end of 2008, the
Salvation Army
Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its ...
would purchase the Bayley campus, demolish the main hospital, and build a recreation center. There was public, political, and press outcry at this plan, especially because
Richmond University Medical Center announced it was going to end most operations at Bayley Seton and scale back operations at its main campus.
From 2014 to 2019, the TV series ''
Gotham'' used the hospital as a setting for interior and exterior scenes set in
Arkham Asylum
The Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane (), commonly referred to as Arkham Asylum, is a fictional psychiatric hospital/prison, named after the city of Arkham which appeared first in the stories of H. P. Lovecraft, and later appear ...
. The Amazon series
''Hunters'' also used the campus for filming. Many films have shot on the campus including “The Adjustment Bureau”, “Salt”, “Terrifier 2” and the locally shot comedy “Abnormal Attraction” starring Malcolm McDowell, Bruce Davison,
Gilbert Gottfried, and Leslie Easterbrook.
As of 2020, the main hospital building was still in operation at reduced capacity. The Salvation Army had purchased a seven-acre portion of the campus, and intended to redevelop the site into senior housing or a community center, but had yet to raise the funds to do so. Buildings on that portion of the campus were demolished in 2018.
References
External links
Location and topographic map, showing building layout of BSH campus
{{authority control
Psychiatric hospitals in New York (state)
Teaching hospitals in New York City
Defunct hospitals in Staten Island
National Institutes of Health
United States Marine Hospitals
Hospitals established in 1831