Sadly, this view looking north on Cebra Avenue in Stapleton, Staten Island will no longer be available next month as the Samuel R. Smith Infirmary, formerly Staten Island Hospital, is being razed after over 30 years of abandonment.
Let The Kingston Lounge tell the sad tale of why it wasn’t landmarked, as well as take a peek inside.
The Infirmary has long been a Forgotten NY “touchstone” as I marveled at it on my trips to Staten Island even before I began the website. My camera was drawn to it like a magnet, with its quadruple turrets situated on one of Staten Island’s higher hills. We visited it on ForgottenTour 16 in April, 2004.
Sick transit, Gloria.
5 comments
I really don’t see why this couldn’t have been saved. It just looks too nice to tear down. Then again, this is NYC, and if you can’t find a new use for something, it ends up being demolished to be replaced by something else. Also, I can’t believe that this was never landmarked, which would have saved it from demolition. On a side note, I don’t mean to add insult to injury, but the state of NY is really losing a lot of hospitals, and this can be a problem if we don’t act now to keep the ones that are still active.
While I’m sad to see Smith Infirmary go, it has been beyond repair for years now. Basically just the four walls are all that’s left (not to mention the decrepit state of the “new” wing of the old Staten Island Hospital, built in the 1920s and standing just as empty in the left of the photo). Real estate being what it is in this part of SI, there just isn’t a call for luxury housing, which would be the only way to recoup the millions of dollars it would take to rebuild the Infirmary and Hospital building next door. Puzzling that the Infirmary wasn’t landmarked, but such is life. I hope they do something nice with the land, maybe make a much-needed park out of it, but my first guess is a bunch of cheaply-built tract housing that will quickly fall into disrepair.
I feel sick to my stomach upon hearing the news as well as seeing this lovely old structure in person.
It’s the way of many things.
Penn Station anyone?
:*>(
landmarking it might not save it….in new jersey the Palace Amusement Park Building was landmarked …it was the oldest indoor amusement park in the country and was structurally sound….but the state (then governor McGreevey) ok’d it’s demolition and they did demolish it….but spared a few pieces of it.For a planned Museum.
They PAVED paradise and put up a PARKING lot.