Forgotten New York

SMALLPOX HOSPITAL, ROOSEVELT ISLAND

I was asked to help out a pal with a photo of the ancient Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island. I realize the last really good batch of photos I obtained of the place came in 2005. In the years since, the ruins have been buttressed with metal struts which unfortunately are necessary to maintain it. I should be able to get back to the island relatively soon, if decent weekend weather ever materializes.


photos: Andrew Harris

1828 was the year that a long succession of institutions and hospitals appeared on what was then called Blackwells Island after a prominent family in Ravenswood, Queens who had holdings on the island. The first “lunatic asylum” appeared in 1841 to be followed by an almshouse (debtor’s prison) in 1847 and the first hospital in 1849. Charles Dickens visited the island in the 1840s and delineated the inhumanely harsh conditions of the asylums.

In 1858, City Hospital, a handsomely built but poorly administrated hospital opened, and the years between 1856 and 1867 saw a variety of hospitals treating various maladies such as smallpox, epilepsy and paralysis. Gradually, Blackwells Island had obtained a reputation as the place they put you if you were no longer wanted or considered too sick to return to society. Smallpox, of course, has been eliminated by a vaccine with the final naturally occurring case in 1980.

Ruins of the Smallpox Hospital, built in 1856 on the southern tip of the island, remain inaccessible to the public except on special tours. Visitors can view the “magnificently” ruined castle-like structure from the outside, but the interior has yet to be made safe for the public. Unusually, it is well-lit at night and its ghostly outline can be readily seen from Manhattan Island after dark.

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