Mount Sinai Beth Israel is a 799-bed
teaching hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...
in
Manhattan.
It is part of the
Mount Sinai Health System, a nonprofit health system formed in September 2013 by the merger of Continuum Health Partners and Mount Sinai Medical Center, and an academic affiliate of the
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
History
Beth Israel is
Hebrew for "House of Israel." The hospital was incorporated as Beth Israel Hospital on May 28, 1890, by a group of 40
Orthodox Jews on the
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets.
Traditionally an im ...
of Manhattan, each of whom paid 25 cents to set up a hospital dedicated to serving immigrant Jews living in the tenement slums of the
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets.
Traditionally an im ...
of
Manhattan. At the time, most of New York's hospitals would not treat Jewish patients. It initially opened a
dispensary
A dispensary is an office in a school, hospital, industrial plant, or other organization that dispenses medications, medical supplies, and in some cases even medical and dental treatment. In a traditional dispensary set-up, a pharmacist dispen ...
at 206 Broadway in 1891, and moved to Jefferson and Cherry Streets in 1895. On March 12, 1929, it moved to
First Avenue and 16th Street, facing
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 the old building was converted into an old age home, the
Home of Old Israel
The Home of Old Israel was a Jewish assisted living facility located in New York City.
History
The Home of Old Israel was originally conceived as a "Home for old men and women" for members of the Society of Khal Chasidim. A building was purchased ...
. It purchased its neighbor Manhattan General Hospital in 1964 and was renamed Beth Israel Medical Center on March 10, 1965.

By then it had extended beyond its Jewish base and served the entire population of
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...
including Manhattan's Lower East Side,
Chinatown
A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
,
Gramercy, the
West Village, and
Chelsea. In 1988 it had the largest network of
heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...
-treatment clinics in the United States with 7,500 patients and 23 facilities.
[ ] It acquired
Doctors Hospital on the Upper East Side in the 1990s, renaming it Beth Israel Medical Center-Singer Division, and Kings Highway Hospital Center in
Brooklyn in 1995, renaming it Beth Israel Medical Center-Kings Highway Division. In 2004, the Singer Division closed and the Manhattan inpatient operations were consolidated in the buildings on First Avenue at 16th Street in Manhattan.
As of 2010 Mount Sinai Beth Israel had residency training programs in nearly every major field of medicine including
Emergency Medicine
Emergency medicine is the medical speciality concerned with the care of illnesses or injuries requiring immediate medical attention. Emergency physicians (often called “ER doctors” in the United States) continuously learn to care for unsche ...
,
Internal Medicine,
Surgery
Surgery ''cheirourgikē'' (composed of χείρ, "hand", and ἔργον, "work"), via la, chirurgiae, meaning "hand work". is a medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a person to investigate or treat a pat ...
,
Otolaryngology,
Oral and maxillofacial surgery,
Radiology,
Family Medicine
Family medicine is a medical specialty within primary care that provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and family across all ages, genders, diseases, and parts of the body. The specialist, who is usually a primary ...
,
Dermatology,
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 ...
and
Gynecology
Gynaecology or gynecology (see spelling differences) is the area of medicine that involves the treatment of women's diseases, especially those of the reproductive organs. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, forming the combined are ...
,
Neurology,
Ophthalmology,
Pathology,
Psychiatry,
Podiatry, and
Urology. Mount Sinai Beth Israel also has a department of
Chiropractic,
Music Therapy, and Acupuncture.
On November 22, 2013, the name of Beth Israel Medical Center was changed to Mount Sinai Beth Israel as a part of the merger with Mount Sinai to form the
Mount Sinai Health System.
On May 25, 2016, Mount Sinai announced a significant restructuring and downsizing, with plans to build a new hospital with only 70 inpatient beds on a site several blocks away, after which the main hospital on 16th Street would close and be sold.
On June 11, 2017, the hospital's Labor and Delivery Department closed, followed by the hospital's "Continuum Center for Health and Healing" later in the year.
The relocation plan, which would have the new facility open in 2023 and share a campus with the
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary was approved by the state on February 6, 2020,
however on June 15, 2021, the hospital announced they would no longer be relocating.
References
External links
Official websitePhillips School of Nursing
{{authority control
Continuum Health Partners
Gramercy Park
Hospital buildings completed in 1902
Hospital buildings completed in 1929
Hospitals established in 1890
Hospitals in Manhattan
Teaching hospitals in New York City