City Hospital (also known as Island Hospital or Charity Hospital) was an historic hospital on

Roosevelt Island Roosevelt Island is an island in New York City's East River, within the borough of Manhattan. It lies between Manhattan Island to the west, and the borough of Queens, on Long Island, to the east. Running from the equivalent of East 46th to 85 ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

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 ...

History

Originally named Penitentiary Hospital and located on what was then known as Blackwell's Island, the first hospital was built in 1832 to serve the prisoners housed at Blackwell's Penitentiary. After the hospital was destroyed by a fire in 1858, architect

James Renwick, Jr. James Renwick Jr. (born November 11, 1818, Bloomingdale, in Upper Manhattan, New York City – June 23, 1895, New York City) was an American architect in the 19th century. ''The Encyclopedia of American Architecture'' calls him "one of the most ...

designed a new building to be called City Hospital, on which prisoners completed construction in 1861. It served both inmates and New York City's poorer population. In 1870, the hospital was renamed Charity Hospital and a medical superintendent was hired after the quality of care was criticized. In 1877, Charity Hospital opened a school of nursing, the fourth such training institution in the United States. The program of education for nurses encompassed two to three years of training in the care of patients and general hospital cleanliness. At Charity Hospital, nurses treated patients, assisted surgeons, weighed and cared for newborns, and took cooking classes. In 1916, Dr. Orrin Sage Wightman, an internist at the hospital, took a series of photographs of student nurses, which are housed at the

New-York Historical Society The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library in New York City, along Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum. ...

. The city changed the name of the island to Welfare Island in 1921 to reflect the mission of the institutions located there.

Abandonment

The prison closed in 1935, and the hospital was closed in 1957, when operations for Charity Hospital and

Smallpox Hospital The Smallpox Hospital, sometimes referred to as the Renwick Smallpox Hospital and later the Maternity and Charity Hospital Training School, was a hospital located on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan, New York City. Originally designed by architect ...

were moved to

Elmhurst Hospital Center Elmhurst Hospital Center (EHC), also known as NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, is a 545-bed public hospital in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens in New York City. It is one of the 11 acute care hospitals of NYC Health + Hospitals, a public ...

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

. The building, designed in the

Second Empire Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...

style, was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1972. The next year, Welfare Island was renamed Roosevelt Island in honor of

Franklin D. 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 ...

. By 1986, the hospital was being considered for demolition because its condition had deteriorated so much. The hospital was demolished in 1994. Stones salvaged from the structure were used in paths in the

Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park is a memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt that celebrates the Four Freedoms he articulated in his 1941 State of the Union address. It is located adjacent to the historic Smallpox Hospital in New York Cit ...

, which was constructed on the southern tip of the island.

References

{{authority control Hospital buildings completed in 1832 Hospitals established in 1832 Hospital buildings completed in 1861 Defunct hospitals in Manhattan Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan Government buildings completed in 1861 Infrastructure completed in 1861 Roosevelt Island 1832 establishments in New York (state) James Renwick Jr. buildings Second Empire architecture in New York City 1861 establishments in New York (state) Buildings and structures demolished in 1994 Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan