Jewish Maternity Hospital was an

obstetrics Obstetrics is the field of study concentrated on pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. As a medical specialty, obstetrics is combined with gynecology under the discipline known as obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), which is a surgi ...

hospital located at 270–272 East Broadway, on the

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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

Jewish Maternity Hospital was chartered in 1906 and opened on February 15, 1909. It catered to the Jewish residents of the Lower East Side, who were the overwhelmingly predominant local population at the time, although expectant mothers of any religion were accepted. In its first 20 years of operation, 31,295 babies were born at Jewish Maternity Hospital. The hospital merged administratively with Beth Israel Hospital on December 19, 1929. Beth Israel was in financial straits because of cost overruns on a new building under construction at

Stuyvesant Square Stuyvesant Square is the name of both a park and its surrounding neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The park is located between 15th Street, 17th Street, Rutherford Place, and Nathan D. Perlman Place (formerly Livingston ...

, and Jewish Maternity Hospital had money available for their own construction plans. When Beth Israel finished their construction in 1931, Jewish Maternity Hospital also moved to the site. Both institutions’ names were kept for some time after the merger, but the Jewish Maternity Hospital name was eventually replaced by the Beth Israel name for all obstetrical services.

Births of people who became notable

Jerome Robbins Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz; October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television. Among his nu ...

(1918–1998) – choreographer, director, dancer, and theater producer

Legacy

The building on the Lower East Side continued to be used for outpatient services, and was sold in 1943 to the Home of the Sages of Israel, a retirement home for rabbis located next door to the former hospital building. The structures were then combined and remodeled into an expanded retirement home. The successor maternity services at Beth Israel Hospital continued to operate for several decades, but were closed on June 11, 2017, as part of that hospital's downsizing.

References

Hospitals established in 1906 Hospital buildings completed in 1909 Defunct hospitals in Manhattan 1906 establishments in New York City Maternity hospitals in the United States History of women in New York City {{NYC-stub