History of Health in New York

During the late nineteenth century, New York City’s densely populated, poor neighborhoods were overloaded with atrocious tenement housing. Among the poorest neighborhoods was New York’s Lower East side, once referred to as “Poverty Hollow.” Sanitary and living conditions made it a breeding ground for premature death and illness. Often considered responsible for their own misfortune, the poor were blamed for their dreadful living circumstances and frequently went without aide. Sympathetic to their needs, a young Lilian Wald, devoted her life to the care and well-being of the city’s poorest. In 1893, she created the Nurse’s Settlement, renamed the Henry Street Settlement. Over the next one hundred twenty six years, the settlement contributed to the health and welfare of thousands of New Yorkers.

Baring witness to the extreme poverty, Nurse Lillian Wald moved into a tenement on the Lower East Side, where she created and housed the Nurse’s Settlement for the first two years. Her connections and diligent advocacy for philanthropic support resulted in the donation of a townhouse at 265 Henry Street, by banker Jacob H. Schiff. Shortly after the completion in 1895, Wald moved into the townhouse and it became the center of the settlement’s activities. As the scope of work for the settlement house grew, the property grew to incorporate 263, 267, 299, 301, and 303 Henry Street and multiple satellite offices located throughout the city. Wald’s dedication to the Lower East Side and humanitarian work was showcased throughout the Henry Street Settlement and the community she served.

As a professional nurse, Wald labored endlessly to provide vital aide to the community. Her fundamental visons on public health service established the Henry Street Settlement as a national example in care for the poor. As part of her legacy she coined the term public health nursing, which sought after treatment of social and health problems amongst the patients served. Her accomplishments impacted nursing, the Lower East Side, and New York City. Perhaps her most important contribution was the establishment of the Visiting Nurse Service. Prior to its separation from the Henry Street Settlement, the Visiting Nurse Service carried out the greatest volume of health work amongst any established settlement. Each year the visiting nurses cared for thousands of patients, made hundreds of thousands of home visits, educated parents at prenatal centers and preschools, and provided care for nursing mothers. The Visiting Nurse Service worked meticulously through the generations to meet the needs of a changing city. They worked closely with the immigrant and black communities which were amongst the poorest and had the least access to health services. With dangerous outbreaks of polio, influenza, and diphtheria in the city their work became vital to the health of the city. Their work did not only include treating those who become ill, they also educated the poor to treat and prevent illness within their families. The educational aspect was a major focal point in Wald’s vision for the poor.

In her creation of the Henry Street Settlement, Lillian Wald strove to defend the moral worth of the poor by offering educational and social opportunities. She moved into Settlement as a neighbor and companion to those who needed her help. The Henry Street Settlement became a beacon for social change. The staff involved itself in issues concerning child labor laws, public housing, special education, and public education. Believing that recreation was crucial to childhood development, Wald turned the Settlement’s backyard into one of the first public playgrounds. Many children were sent outside to escape the dangers of overcrowded tenements and left to play in the streets. The park became a safe haven for the children to play and families to nurture childhood recreation. The Settlement house also put the first school nurse on payroll which prompted the Board of Education to employ nurses in public schools. Many students missed school or were sent home due to minor, but often contagious, ailments such as lice; yet others went undetected and continued to spread illness to healthy students. Wald’s thorough research and trustworthy relationship with the Board of Health helped to advocate for medical inspections of public schools, leading to medical care for more students and an increase in the attendance of poor students. The Henry Street House would continue to meet the social needs of the New York’s poorest inhabitants, changing its focus with the changing times.

Today the Henry Street Settlement House remains an essential life line to the city’s poor. In 1976, 263, 265, and 267 collectively became a national historic landmark. Lillian Wald’s philosophy of nurture and care for the poor has lamented for generations after she left the staff at the Settlement house. As the eras have changed, the settlement adjusts its focus towards important community issues, currently they are assisting victims of domestic violence and educating community members on the importance of voting. With one hundred twenty-six years of service, the Henry Street Settlement House has greatly impacted the overall health of the city and has afforded opportunities to millions of New Yorkers.

 

Resources

Fee, Elizabeth, and Liping Bu. “The Origins of Public Health Nursing: the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service.” American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, July 2010, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2882394/.

Henry Street Settlement, www.henrystreet.org/about/our-history/exhibit-the-house-on-henry-street/.

Kraus, Harry P. The Settlement House Movement in New York City, 1886-1914. Arno Press, 1980.

“Menu.” Lillian Wald Public Health Progressive, www.lillianwald.com/?page_id=457.

“VNSNY History | Home Care Agency | Home Health Care.” Visiting Nurse Service of New York, www.vnsny.org/who-we-are/about-us/history/.

 

What remains of the legendary Collect Pond has been turned in to a sanctuary for modern New Yorkers living downtown in Manhattan. Renamed the Collect Pond Park, it now has benches, trees, grass, and all that good park stuff! It leaves people wondering what the original pond used to look like or why it was filled up.

The Collect Pond is filled by an underground spring in New York City. It was used as a source of drinking water back in the 1700s, fast forward to the early 1800s the once pristine pond became… well contaminated.

“…as the rise of industry started to affect New York City’s natural resource; the neighboring slaughterhouses, tanneries, breweries and other local shops began dumping their waste into Collect Pond.”

In 1811 the Collect Pond was filled in and shortly after new homes were made over the filled in pond. The new neighborhood took on the name Paradise Square. All seemed well until the 1820s, Paradise was sinking and stinking. As stated before, the Collect Pond is a spring fed pond, therefore, would never dry up. Ergo, it wouldn’t be the safest place to build houses over. Not to mention the stench which forced the wealthier members of the neighborhood to move which was most likely caused by the fact that the water was polluted.

Contaminated water is never good for anyone and, of course, with it came the spread of diseases like cholera. Cholera is a bacterial disease which can be caught by drinking contaminated water.

Deriving from the Bay of Bengal, the disease made its way to North America through the transatlantic trade and spread across the United States through waterways such as the Erie Canal. Cholera officially hit New York City in the Summer of 1832. 

When discussing the mentality of upperclassmen in New York City during the epidemic in his New York Times article, How Epidemics Helped Shape the Modern Metropolis, John Noble Wilford stated,

“If you got cholera, it was your own fault.”

Although wealthier residents of Manhattan were able to move away from affected areas and could obtain clean drinking water, the poorer communities were not able to afford such luxuries. Neighborhoods like Paradise Square soon became a slum for poor immigrants and was renamed “Five Points” for the five streets (Mulberry Street, Anthony Street, Cross Street, Orange Street, and Little Water Street, according to the NYC Park article on the Collect Pond)  plagued with gang activity. It was no secret in this time that landlords would allow overcrowding in apartment buildings.  This in turn allowed for diseases like cholera to spread rapidly through immigrant populations due to poor hygiene, living conditions and lack of access to clean water.

 

 

 

It was apparent socioeconomic status played a role in who was affected. The disease had noticeably appeared in city slums where the poor and immigrant population resided, mostly packed together.

In the 1890s, muckraking journalist Jacob Riis published a book, How the Other Half Lives, to expose how the poorer communities in New York City were living.

Dr. John Snow, a physician from London had found the connection between the spread of cholera and water. In his New York Times article, How Epidemics Helped Shape the Modern Metropolis, Wilford states,

“Dr. Snow tested the idea by plotting cholera cases on a map of Soho. This showed that most of the victims drew their water from a public pump on Broad (now Broadwick) Street.”

By bringing this to the attention of the Board of Health, this discovery helped New York City by making efforts to clean up the city. Sanitation became an important part of living and helped prevent the spread of cholera and other diseases that derive from germs.

The Collect Pond has been long buried since the early 1800s, however, the neighborhood built over it no longer exists. According to the NYC Parks website, after Jacob Riis’s book was published, the area once known as Five Points was transformed into what we now know as Civic Center. It is there were the Collect Pond Park resides as a form of memorial for the pond that once existed there.

References:

 

 

The neglectful response from the government in the 1980s towards the AIDS crises was the driving force in the creation of the group ACT UP. ACT UP or the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power was formed in March 1987 “the group focused on demanding quicker drug approvals and access to new treatments for aids sufferers.” (Hoffman 178) ACT UP united blacks, whites, lesbians, gays and straight peoples in a fight for health care as a right and for desperately needed AIDS treatments. On March 24, 1987 ACT UP staged their first major protest on Wall street. They demanded the immediate release of drugs that could possibly save AIDS patients. They demanded affordable prices, public education about AIDS, no double blinded studies when it came to AIDS drugs and the release of drugs to everyone with AIDS or ARC. At this point in time FDA normal procedure would take up to 9 years to release these drugs. No AIDS patient had that kind of time. By 1987, AIDS had killed over 40,000 people becoming one of the leading causes of death and still no 100% effective treatment was on the market since its first appearance in 1980.

On November 1980 a man arrived at Bellevue hospital complaining of shortness of breath and with a fever. A lung biopsy revealed that the 34-year-old man had pneumocystis pneumonia. A few days later a drug addict with a heavy cough and fever appeared and received the same diagnoses. Both were found to have extremely low T cell count.  Pneumocystis pneumonia was normally found in cancer patients whose immune system was compromised. Around the same time the NYU Dermatology Clinic began to see men coming in with colored blotches. Biopsies revealed Kaposi’s sarcoma. A rare form of cancer usually found in elderly men from the Mediterranean and transplant patients on immunosuppressant drugs. More and more patients began to appear with these as well as other opportunistic diseases that usually appear in people with immunodeficiency. Doctors were left confused as these diseases were rare and were being seen without other diseases present. The one thing that was common was that whatever it was attacked homosexuals and intravenous drug users. By 1982 New York City had over 500 cases of AIDS.  That same year on October 15 at a White House Briefing, Larry Speakes, the White House Press Secretary was asked “Does the president have any reaction to the announcement that AIDS is now an epidemic with over 600 cases?” He replied “No, I don’t know anything about it.” The government would continue to neglect the seriousness of the disease and no blood test would be available until 1985. On April 23, 1984 the National Cancer Institute’s Dr. Gallo identified the HIV virus as the cause of AIDS and developed a test for it. The test itself did not receive licensing until March 2, 1985 because the Institut Pasteur in Paris also claimed they had identified the virus. By late 1985, 3,766 AIDS-related deaths had been recorded. These included homosexuals, Haitians, intravenous drug users and hemophiliacs. Still the Deputy Mayor Victor Botnick insisted New York City had “No AIDS crisis. (Oshinsky 270) President Reagan himself distanced himself from the aids epidemic as he promised to slash domestic spending and wanted to “mollify supporters who saw AIDS as divine retribution for sinful behavior. “(Oshinsky 270)

As research advanced in AIDS the understanding of how it was contracted showed it was a sexually transmitted disease that could not be contracted by a simple touch or proximity to an AIDS patient. This didn’t stop the discrimination and fear of HIV/AIDS and would prompt many private doctors, ems, dentist, funeral homes and nurses to refuse to treat or be near AIDS patients. (Oshinsky 263) Many of those who contracted AIDS were kicked out of their homes or lost their jobs. They were dropped from their insurance companies and were often not Medicaid eligible until they had exhausted all their life savings on medical expenses. Insurance companies would drop or rule people ineligible because of occupations that were associated with gay men or because of their zip code. (Hoffman 179) Vito Russo, an AIDS activist, said in an ACT UP demonstration in Albany, NY

“If it is true that gay men and IV drug users are the populations at risk for this disease,then we have a right to demand that education and prevention be targeted specifically to these people. And it is not happening. We are being allowed to die, while low risk populations are being panicked — not educated, panicked — into believing that we deserve to die.”

ACT UP members were tired of seeing their community dying with no way to stop it. They decided that it was time to take a stance. Although Wall street today looks like a regular street where just daily business and trade goes on, it was once the starting point of an influential group who’s “in your face tactics” brought attention and change to the AIDS community. In the March 24, 1987 protest ACT UP achieved quicker FDA approvals. The group continued its fight and by 1990 Congress passed the AIDS Care Emergency Act “which provided $880 million for the medical care and support of people with AIDS.” (Hoffman 179) ACT UP continued to fight for effective treatments for years as many couldn’t take AZT and its severe side effects. In 1993 a European study disproved the effectiveness of AZT, DDI and drugs with similar AZT effectiveness were useless. In 1995 ACT UP and TAG released a collection of AIDS studies called “Problems with Protease Inhibitors Development Plans” and proposed a study. In 1996, with ACT UP being a part of scientific meetings that discussed AIDS treatments, a triple combination therapy was discovered and proved to be effective in making AIDS patients undetectable within 30 days. AIDS was no longer a death sentence thanks to ACT UP, TAG and scientist that worked together.

Sources:

1.  Pedoto, Julianne. “The AIDS Crisis in New York City.” History of New York City, blogs.shu.edu/nyc-history/aids-crisis/.
2. Aizenman, Nurith. “How To Demand A Medical Breakthrough: Lessons From The AIDS Fight.” NPR, NPR, 9 Feb. 2019, www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/02/09/689924838/how-to-demand-a-medical-breakthrough-lessons-from-the-aids-fight.
3. Handelman, David, and David Handelman. “Act Up in Anger.” Rolling Stone, 25 June 2018, www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/act-up-in-anger-241225/.
4. France, David, director. How to Survive a Plague. Amazon, 2012
5. Schwarz, Jeffrey, director. Vito. Amazon, 2011
6. Oshinsky, David. Bellevue – Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at Americas Most Storied. Random House Usa Inc, 2016.
7. Hoffman, Beatrix Rebecca. Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930. The University of Chicago Press, 2013.
8. Russo, Vito. “Why We Fight.” Why We Fight by Vito Russo, 1988, www.actupny.org/documents/whfight.html.

The Smallpox Hospital of New York, known by some as Renwick Ruins, was once a center for smallpox treatment and containment located on the now Roosevelt Island. The hospital began operation in 1856 as the first of its kind in the nation to exclusively dedicate itself to smallpox cases. It saw 20 years of continuous work centered on the disease until the epidemic had been considered under control by the city. Once a landmark institution, the state of the building in place today does not evoke a sense of pride or importance. In fact, the Smallpox Hospital is an archaic sight that stands out starkly against the NYC landscape. The smallpox hospital was once a crowning achievement for the city by becoming a “first” but reveals much-overlooked horrors when examining the conditions faced by poor and immigrant smallpox patients.  

The hospital is just a short F train ride away, but what stands there today is a building that is hard to imagine as NYC history. Roosevelt Island is wedged just between Queens and the Upper East Side, now largely a residential area, but just a few minutes south is the decaying gothic ruin. The stone building has collapsed in some areas, engulfed by ivy, and only a shell of its former self. The entirety of the interior has given way and both wire and iron fences now line the foundations to keep out the curious. Over the years, the smallpox hospital has attracted a surprisingly steady influx of onlookers on its own but largely due to the theory that its ruins are home to the paranormal.

The moniker, Renwick Ruins, comes from its architect famous for another NYC landmark just across the river. James Renwick Jr. is the influential architect behind both St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the smallpox hospital. His gothic style was a favorite for Blackwell Island as he was responsible for the Lighthouse, hospital, and the City Hospital. The City Hospital possessed the same status on the National Register of Historic Places as the smallpox hospital but was demolished decades ago due to concerns of the integrity of the structure, a fate that seems all too close for Renwick Ruins.

Construction of the three-story, 100-bed hospital was long rumored to have been started by patients from the mental asylum just north of the structure. Although hard to imagine, that grim visual isn’t too far off from reality. According to Stephen Martin, director for the Four Freedoms Park Conservatory, the smallpox hospital was built using “chain gang” prison labor. These prisoners, from a Blackwell penitentiary known for being overcrowded, corrupt, and meager, did all physical labor from processing the stone to erecting the building itself.

The location of the smallpox hospital, an island shared with inmates from both prisons and asylums, helped contain the disease as Blackwell Island was known for its isolation. Smallpox is a contagious disease spread through saliva from infected persons in which symptoms include fevers, aching, and the development of pustule filled rashes. The vaccine for this illness, developed by Edward Jenner at the turn of the 18th century, was successfully based on variolation and has helped to nearly eradicate the disease today. Despite its success, smallpox continued to reach epidemic proportions within New York City.

The largely unvaccinated population of immigrants arriving to New York further spread the danger of smallpox. The rise in cases eventually necessitated an institution that could effectively manage the symptoms of those suffering and comply with NYC’s strict policy of quarantining those who exhibited symptoms of the disease. Those who made up the population of the hospital were mostly the poor or immigrants that could not afford to overlook NYC law regarding disease quarantines and were subsequently shipped away from the city. The treatment offered by the hospital was described by some as being “zealous… attentive… and thoroughly competent” and others questioned the “deplorable conditions” that were more likely to further sicken than cure (Spiegel, p. 404).

The hospital was erected to help alleviate the rising epidemic of NYC smallpox out of charity but depending on one’s socioeconomic status, the care received varied largely. Standard care included the changing of linens, maintaining well-ventilated accommodations, and providing meals but the importance of those requirements to staff depended on whether or not patients could pay for their care. Reports on the hospital either categorized it as a landmark achievement offering“the best of care” or a “mere shanty” with inadequate accommodation (Spiegel, p. 403). Among those who loudly defended the care and conditions at the smallpox hospital was Dr. James C. Hallock Jr., a physician who sought to send diseased immigrants from his temporary Castle Garden hospital to the Blackwell Island facility.

Patients were taken to the island via ferry and in some cases, they received a police escort to ensure their admittance. Those arriving were met by grim welcomes, either the sight of stacked coffins awaiting transport back into the city or in some accounts, the dead being burned and scattered into the East River. Poor residents were separated from the wealthier, sent to the crowded wards of the first two floors of the hospital. Many of those suffering feared that they were to die in overcrowded isolation as visits from friends and family were forbidden.

The hospital, after twenty years of service, was eventually converted into a nursing school complete with quarters after the smallpox epidemic had subsided. Ever since the mid 20th century, the smallpox hospital has become dormant and only continues to decay. Many NYC historical conservation groups seek to preserve the location but its history and fate are looking grim, much like the former City Hospital. The structure that stands today is famed for the tragic history regarding the sickness and death that surrounded its very being, often bringing in a paranormal element. The shaky history of the hospital, especially in regards to the treatment of sick immigrants and poor New Yorkers, is overlooked and should be brought to the forefront of the conversation surrounding the significance of the hospital.

Sources:

Spiegel, Allen D., et al. “Smallpox and New York City’s Smallpox Hospital.” Journal of Community Health, vol. 30, no. 5, Oct. 2005, pp. 391–413. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10900-005-5519-9.

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/nyregion/05asylum.html

https://youtu.be/Xe9NXIQFhaE

http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycdoc/html/blakwel1.html

https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/history/history.html

 

Charles B Towns Hospital was a hospital intended to help people overcome addiction from alcohol and narcotics. The hospital was located at 293 Central Park West and was founded in 1909. Its mission from the beginning had been to treat people with addiction problems, drugs and alcoholism. It started as a private hospital and in order to get treatment you had to pay a high fixed-fee which made the hospital attract only the wealthiest alcoholics and drug addicts. The hospital’s mission was to successfully and completely remove the “poison” from the patient’s system and obliterate all craving for drugs and alcohol.

The founder of the hospital, Charles B Towns, was a life insurance agent from Georgia who then moved to New York to work as a life insurance agent. There he met Dr. Alexander Lambert, Theodore Roosevelt’s personal physician who had come up with his own cure against addiction. He obtained the recipe from Towns, who claimed to have gotten in from a country doctor. Towns himself didn’t have a medical degree or knowledge so he needed Lambert for credibility. Lambert had worked for years with alcoholics at Bellevue hospital where he also experimented with his cure.

The cure was called “Belladonna” and consisted of a mixture of hallucinogens coming from different plant. The main plat was Belladonna also known as deadly nightshade. Other ingredients included henbane and dried berries of prickly ash which was supposed to help with diarrhea and intestinal cramps. The mixture was given every hour all day for about fifty hours until the patient’s face became flushed, eyes dilated and throat dry. Towns claimed to have cured thousands with his methods and that he had a ninety percent success rate.

Charles B Towns Hospital began in 1909 at 119 West 81^st and in 1914 moved to 293 Central Park West. The resident staff in the hospital was composed of four physicians. They devoted their entire time to Charles B. Towns hospital and would see no patients out of it. These doctors administered the Hospital’s medical treatment and conducted its medical work. Doctors were also free to bring their own referred patients to the hospital and treat them according to their own plan of treatment while cooperating with the staff.

The patients, who usually came from wealthy backgrounds, would be accommodated in one of the most modern hospitals of the time. The patients were assured absolute privacy and all the meals were served in their room. There were regular rooms and suites, all of them equipped with personal bathrooms and telephones. Individual nursing service was provided to those patients who requested. The roof of the building was fitted in garden style and was an ideal spot for patients who wanted to rest and exercise. A whole floor of the building which overlooked Central Park was dedicate to physical therapy. Some suggest that no other hospital had more modern equipment at the time. The cost upon admission was between $200 and $350 for a four-to-five day stay. Since it was the time of Prohibition and there was a rise in alcoholism during the 1920s, the hospital focused on drying out well-to-do alcoholics. Towns claimed to treat about a thousand patients every year.

The patients would consist of clergymen, bankers, writers, actors and actresses, professionals and cab drivers. The most famous patient who would get treated at the hospital was William Griffith Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Between 1933 and 1934, he was admitted three times at Towns Hospital. On his third and last stay he showed signs of delirium tremens, rapid onset of confusions caused by withdrawal from alcohol after completing the Belladonna cure. He would start drinking again after three months.

Towns’ credibility fell with the time. He was known for stretching the truth and his claims would sound more and more extravagant. He would claim that his cure had a ninety percent success rate but based on the reasoning that a client would no longer need your services if you never heard from him again. Charles B. Towns would die in 1947 and his son Edward Towns would operate the hospital in its remaining years. His son was an infantry colonel, a Columbia graduate who practiced law until 1940.

In its recent years, the hospital’s method in treating alcoholism consisted of detoxification in combination with supportive vitamin theory. Doctors applied the theory that doses of vitamins would r

eplace the vitamins that were destroyed by the liquor. Meanwhile, the treatment for drug addicts was based on a method of rapid withdrawal. Mr. Towns would suggest that the best way for treating addicts would be by placing them in custody and teaching them a trade or vacation.

 

The methods didn’t find a lot of success and in 1965, after fifty years of treating alcoholics and addicts, the hospital would finally close its doors. The building is now used as a residential unit in one of the better parts of the city. 

 

1. Morris Kaplan. “‘ Drying-Out’ Hospital for Problem Drinkers Closes.” New York Times (1923-Current File) [New York, N.Y.] 1965: 114. Web.
2. Markel, Howard. “An Alcoholic’s Savior: God, Belladonna or Both?” New York Times (1923-Current File) [New York, N.Y.] 2010: D5. Web.
3. Charles B. Towns Hospital.  “The special work of the Charles B. Towns Hospital and its ethical relations with the medical profession.” 1918.

The classic hustle and flow of New York City has been around for centuries. The city that never sleeps has always been active and growing non-stop. However, the city became the last place people wanted to be in the mid 19^th century. The cholera outbreak that would claim the lives of thousands brought fear and uncertainty into many people’s lives. According to the WHO, cholera is a disease that is contracted from drinking water or eating foods that have come in contact with an infected person’s feces. At the time in New York City, because clean drinking water was so scarce, the spread of cholera was almost unstoppable. In the 1850’s Dr. John Snow of London did a study attempting to find the cause of cholera. His study showed that many infected people lived around a single water pump. When the pump was removed, the spread of cholera began to slow down and eventually stop¹. What Snow’s study in London did, was confirm something that many people already suspected. The spread of cholera came from the water supply. What this did was create not only a demand for, but a necessity of cleaner water in New York City. How the disease spread through the city can be seen here.

(Drawing of the reservoir looking down 5th ave.⁷)

     Interestingly, the idea of bringing clean river water into New York City stems as far back as 1774. Christopher Colles, an Irish American engineer suggested feeding river water through wooden pipes all throughout the city. However, the project was forgotten at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Another attempt was made in 1822. Engineer, Canvas White, was employed to survey the cost of bringing water from the Bronx River into New York City. Unfortunately, this plan was also abandoned due to conflicts with other company’s rights to distribute water. In 1834, a board of water commissioners was created to, “examine and consider all matters relative to supplying the city of New York with a sufficient quantity of pure and wholesome water for the use of its inhabitants”². This was first step taken towards creating the 42^nd street reservoir. The project soon began in 1837, with a 250-foot-wide damn on the Croton River north of New York City. Water began to fill the 42^nd street reservoir on July 4^th 1842.

The 42^nd street reservoir also called the Croton Reservoir was a massive structure and an engineering feat of its time. The structure had walls 50 feet tall, 25 feet wide and held 25 million gallons of water.³ The initial design was created to allowed 24 gallons of water a day to each of New York City’s 600,000 residents. The opening day of the reservoir was a day of celebration for all of New York City. On the opening day, over 20,000 people visited the structure, most were given the day off from work in order to celebrate. Designed by engineer, John B. Jervis and architect, James Renwick Jr, the reservoir had an Egyptian character with sloped pyramid-like pillars on its corners.⁴

(Corner of 5th ave and 42nd st. 1899 and 2019⁶)

    This new water system had an amazing impact on the life of New Yorkers. From a health perspective, people were no longer exposed to dirty, disease contaminated water. Residents now had access to clean drinkable water. On top of providing drinking water, the system also had various other benefits for New York City. Years prior to the creation of the reservoir, the city lacked the recourses to properly fight fires. An instance of this is known as one of the great fires of New York City. On December 16^th 1835, a fire broke out on what is now known as Beaver Street. The fire destroyed over 600 buildings and caused at the time, $20 million in damages. One of the greatest challenges fire fighters faced while fighting the fire was access to water. The Hudson and East river were both frozen over and forced firefighters to drill holes through the ice in order to access the water⁵. Had the 42^nd reservoir been created years earlier, the fire would not have been more contained and less damaging.

Overall, the creation of the reservoir improved the life of every New Yorker. Disease was no longer spread, fires could be easily fought and industries could flourish with easier access to water. Historian Henry Collins Brown called the reservoir “the greatest forward stride in the city’s history…” However, the reservoir soon became obsolete. Other water systems built underground in New York City proved to be more effective. The first proposal to tear down the structure was in 1877, and it finally was in the 1890’s. Today the New York Public Library stands where the reservoir once was. Remnants of the reservoir can be seen in the lower levels and foundation of the library.

  (Remnants of the 42nd St. Reservoir that can still be seen in the New York Public Library. Photos courtesy of Dylan O’Connor)

1. https://www.medicinenet.com/cholera/article.htm
2. http://www.ascemetsection.org/committees/history-and-heritage/landmarks/croton-water-supply
3. http://gothamist.com/2015/01/16/revisit_croton_reservoir.php#photo-1⁴
4. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/realestate/23scapes.html
5. https://denverfirefightersmuseum.org/blog/f/the-great-fire-of-new-york-1835
6. 1899 photo: dcmny.org, 2019 photo: Dylan O’Connor
7. https://crotonhistory.org/category/croton-reservoirs/42nd-street-reservoir/

The Kings Park Psychiatric Center is an abandon mental hospital that is located in Long

Island. The Hospital was built in 1885. The Hospital constituted of 150 different buildings. When the hospital was built it was basically its own little village. It was a community that did farming, build their own property and even had railroads to get to the location. The way the hospital was built was to keep people busy and created this community like environment as part of mental health therapy. This location is significant because the hospital was once one of the biggest mental hospitals in the United States and at one point housed over nine thousand patients. During this time mental health was dealt with differently in the United States and researching how this hospital treated thousands of patients and how the decline of the hospital led to it’s closing in 1970, is important to understand its history.

The colony that was built was part of the therapy in the hospital. Patients took care of the field and grew their own food. For the hospital this was the best type of therapy the patients could receive, before actual medicine was available. With NYC being busy and over crowed all the time, doctors thought it was a great therapy to have patients leave the busy and stressful city and approach life differently at the colony. The patients will receive fresh air and open space. This method of treatment was so popular the hospital got very overcrowded. Kings Park mental hospital was so over crowed that according to the state report in 1893” the buildings were unsuitable and unhienic, facilities inadequate, clothing insufficient and poor quality, food often unit for human consumption.

Another type of therapy used during this era and in the hospital to treat mentally ill patients was shock therapy. Shock therapy was often conducted on epileptic patients dealing with depression and after seeing a successful improvement after the seizure the therapy was used very often. According to the article “ Kings Park, Building 93” By Will Ellis “ The procedure aimed to replicate these benefits by inducing a seizure through electricity or insulin injection”. According to the same article the pain patients went through during these procedures was terrible, sometimes the convulse for up to fifteen minutes and by being strapped to a bed they often forced to fracture or break bones.

Lobotomy was another treatment that was used during this time. Lobotomy was probably one of the most crucial was to treat a patient dealing with mental illness. According the article “ Kings Park, Building 93” by Will Ellis The procedure consisted of “ interesting a metal tool through the eye socket into the skull cavity, and wrenched around to sever the connections of the pre-frontal cortex from the rest of the brain”. This procedure left patients like zombies and sometimes patients forget whom they were. After watching a documentary about a former patient named Lucy Winer, you could see how terrified she sounds just speaking about the hospital. In the documentary she states that her stay was “ harrowing and terrifying”.

Thousands of patients were mistreated in the hospital and unfortunately due to the lack of how to treat mental ill patients these treatments were conducted with no choice. The hospital continued to grow. A 13-story building was even built (still stands today) known as building number 93. By the 1950s the complex consisted of more than 100 buildings, among these buildings there was fire stations recreational facilities and even power plants. A lot of the patients that were emitted to the hospital were not even sick. According to Luck Winer’s documentary, many patients were emitted because they were homeless or immigrants. She states that the hospital was similar to a prison.

By 1970 the hospital was not doing to good. The population declined. A big part of the decline in the population was how the medical community found treatments that included medication and could be treated at home. Other treatments eventually grew popular like holistic treatments. A lot of the patients in Kings Park were relocated and moved to other hospitals or group homes. The hospitals poor planning a lack of good administration led to its official closing. Today the remains of the hospital remain. Many of the building have been torn down but a few stand like building number 93. This massive location is just a few minutes away from the city and it is amazing to understand how much history took place in this location and the different life style that was lived just a few minutes away from the busy city.

 

The 1960s and into the 1970s saw a radical shift in consciousness for American youth, particularly in the inner cities of the nation. Oppressed Americans, mainly minorities, across the country took to the streets to protest against the injustices they faced. The public health violations in Lincoln Hospital were among these injustices that often lead to medical complications and even death for primarily black and Latino New Yorkers. The Young Lords, a radical civil rights organization comprised of mainly Puerto Ricans, took over the Nurse’s Residence building at Lincoln Hospital in July of 1970 in an attempt to bring light to the maltreatment of oppressed New Yorkers. Although controversial, their actions were essential for the improvement of the hospital and the community around it, as it caused the city to refocus its priorities regarding public health.

Lincoln Hospital is located on 234 East 149th street in the South Bronx, New York. It is a member of the NYC Health + Hospitals health care system. Its emergency room receives about 144,000 visits annually and has 362 beds in service.[1] Located in the South Bronx, it spans five full city blocks and serves the entire community, as well as Upper Manhattan. The current facility was opened on March 28, 1976, after undergoing major construction for over forty years.

The health needs of black and Latino New Yorkers living in slums were not treated as a priority for the city’s officials in this era. Prior to the Young Lords’ public health activism between 1969 and 1970, the members of the NYC Board of Health did not classify renovations of residential buildings to prevent lead paint poisoning as a,“real health problem.”[2] Lincoln Hospital had been notorious for neglecting its patients, especially for causing its child patients to receive lead poisoning. One of the breaking points for the Young Lords was the death of Carmen Rodriguez, at the hands of the hospital’s own negligence. Rodriguez had sought an abortion at Lincoln Hospital. Once a drug addict, she had suffered various illnesses that afflicted many in her community, like asthma, anemia, and a severe heart condition. The doctors never bothered to check her medical history chart and administered her drugs that could not be given to patients with heart conditions. As a result, she died three days later on July 20, 1970 at 31 years old.[3] Furthermore, lead poisoning in children had become an epidemic with 600 cases being recorded in November 1968 over the course of ten months, 3 resulting in fatalities.[4] This occurred even though lead-based paint was banned in residential buildings in New York City in 1960. The Young Lords, and other black and Puerto Rican New Yorkers who had suffered health complications due to the city’s negligence, decided that taking matters into their own hands was the only way to get the city’s leaders to address the life threatening public health crisis.

In July of 1970, the Young Lords decided to take control of the crisis. Threatened with budget cuts, the hospital had been known as the “Butcher Shop” by local residents for its ill treatment of patients. Joined by the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement (HRUM) and the Think Lincoln Committee, the Young Lords occupied the hospital for twelve hours and demanded better health care and hospital services to the people of the community. Among the demands were: no cutbacks in services or jobs, free food and a day care center for patients and their kids who wait hours to be attended, construction of the new Lincoln Hospital to be completed quickly, and the immediate formation of a community-worker board to control the policies and practices of the hospitals, like door-to-door preventative care emphasizing lead poisoning, anemia, drug addiction, and tuberculosis. The Young Lords negotiated with the hospital’s officials and other representatives of the city’s Health and Hospital Corporation. However, after the negotiations were made, a police officer disguised in civilian clothing had allegedly tried to seize one of the members of the Young Lords, resulting in the negotiations being called off by the party. Around 5:30 PM, the Young Lords removed the Puerto Rican flag, “which they had hoisted over the building, and filed out” peacefully.[5] Two members, Pablo Yoruba Guzman, the minister of information, and Louis Alvarez Perez, his bodyguard were arrested as they left the building.

The Young Lords’ occupation of the hospital dramaticized its disastrous conditions, but placed the crisis into the political spotlight of the city. As a result of their takeover, over a hundred news articles reported the controversies over the hospital’s conditions. City officials were pressed to meet these demands and eventually, the takeover gave way to the passage of anti-lead poisoning legislation in New York in the early 1970s.[6] Later that year, they launched the People’s Program at Lincoln Hospital, which was a methadone detoxification program run entirely by volunteers. The Young Lords’ demands gave way for significant improvements at Lincoln Hospital since it was the only source of medical care for many South Bronx residents. Most notably, the hospital was scheduled for renovation over twenty years prior to the takeover, yet it was only after the Young Lords’ activism did the city accelerate its reconstruction, and eventually opened a new Lincoln Hospital just six years later.

Although there is still much to do in improving public health, the Young Lords paved the way in not only raising awareness to the critical situation at Lincoln Hospital, but directly attempted to aid the community of neglected New Yorkers. Due to their efforts against public health injustices, the city began to prioritize the medical necessities, especially the lead poisoning crisis that was prevalent not only at Lincoln Hospital, but throughout black and Latino communities. Ultimately, their activism should not go unnoted because their selfless actions proved to be momentous for thousands of New Yorkers.

[1] “About Lincoln.” NYC Health HospitalsLincoln. Accessed May 11, 2019. http://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/lincoln/about-lincoln-hospital/.

[2] Colgrove, James Keith., and James Keith. Colgrove. “Public Health and the People.” In Epidemic City: The Politics of Public Health in New York, 48. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011.

[3] Blanchard, Sessi Kuwabara. “How the Young Lords Took Lincoln Hospital, Left a Health Activism Legacy.” Filter. October 30, 2018. Accessed May 11, 2019. filtermag.org/2018/10/30/how-the-young-lords-took-lincoln-hospital-and-left-a-health-activism-legacy/.

[4] Fernandez, Johanna. “Between Social Service Reform and Revolutionary Politics: The Young Lords, Late Sixties Radicalism and Community Organizing in New York.” In Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South, by Jeanne Theoharis, Komozi Woodard, and Matthew Countryman, 270. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

[5] Narvaez, Alfonso A. “Young Lords Seize Lincoln Hospital Building.” The New York Times. 15 July 1970. The New York Times. 23 Mar. 2019 <https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/15/archives/young-lords-seize-lincoln-hospital-building-offices-are-held-for-12.html>.

[6] Fernandez, Johanna. “Chapter 7: The Young Lords and the Social and Structural Roots of Late Sixties Urban Radicalism.” In Civil Rights in New York City: From World War II to the Giuliani Era, by Clarence Taylor, 146. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013.

The Weill Cornell Medical College is a medical school part of Cornell University. It is located on 1300 York Avenue and overlooks the East River. The school was founded in 1898 and was one of first American medical colleges to offer a four-year program in natural science in addition to an existing two-year medical program. The school was founded through an endowment by Colonel Oliver H. Payne, the son of a wealthy Standard Oil businessman. Payne became interested in medicine through his college friends Dr. Lewis A. Stimson and Dr. Henry P. Loomis. At the time, they worked for the University Medical College which was a part of New York University. Colonel Payne was so interested and supportive of his friend Dr. Loomis’ research, that he created a laboratory for him in his name.

In 1896, the University Medical College, the Loomis Laboratory and Bellevue Hospital Medical College came together to form the three components of NYU’s elite medical school. Each component still very much intent on having a say in university affairs agreed to creating a medical committee in which each of the three would elect members to represent their respective faculty members. This committee was supposed to be in charge of operations and hiring. However, as the story goes, the Chancellor of NYU, Henry M. MacCracken did not remember agreeing to create such a committee and instead gave power of the three components to an Executive Committee of his own selection. This committee only had one member from the medical staff on it.

This Executive Committee had total control over hiring faculty and had some control over salaries. This did not sit well with the members of the three component medical facilities. After attempts to work out the power imbalance, the medical faculty of the three components of had enough. They felt marginalized by the power of the executive committee. In 1897, the only member of the medical staff to sit on the committee, known as Henry Dimock, was voted out. After this, Colonel Payne and his associates quit their positions in NYU.

Shortly after, Henry Dimock, Colonel Payne and others filed suit against NYU seeking ownership over their 3 facilities. After years of battles in court, the New York Court of Appeals found in favor of Henry Dimock. The court found that Chancellor MacCracken made an oral promise which he then broke. Thus, the facilities would be turned over to Dimock and his associates and any ties to New York University would be dissolved. After looking for many schools to potentially partner with, they choose Cornell University. A few years later, Cornell University Medical College was established, and 6 lead professors were appointed including, Lewis Stimson and H.P. Loomis. Additionally, Cornell hired a majority of the previous medical staff back and enrolled 278 students, with 26 being female. With much success in New York City, Cornell created a two-year program for medicine on its main campus in Ithaca. One of the reasons why Cornell chose to situate their campus in NYC was because executives at Cornell felt there would not be enough enrollment at Ithaca. Once NYC showed promise, it was only a matter of time they would expand. However, after a few years of solid enrollment, there was a downturn in interest in the Ithaca program for medicine. Shortly after, the Ithaca campus was closed and only NYC remained.

This school is a representation of one of the most influential lawsuits in the history of medicine in New York. It resulted in the split that formed the two most influential medical giants in New York City. Additionally, Cornell increased funds in hospital and medical care, it improved studies in both of their campuses and trained many smart and capable female doctors. Soon Cornell medicine had a better program than NYU, and made a name for itself even though NYU had a longer history and better reputation in this field. Cornell versus NYU is one of the greatest rivalries in the history of NYC medicine and this competitive nature is what has pushed scientific research ahead. These two medical institutions are so ubiquitous, that they have bought out many smaller medical practices. Weill Cornell has partnerships with New York Presbyterian, Memorial Sloan Kettering and the Hospital for Special Surgery. The two universities are a large part of why medicine in New York has advanced so quickly and why NYC is the best place for medical history.

Works Cited

1. 1. Bishop, Morris. A History of Cornell. Cornell Univ. Press, 1992
   2. “Weill Cornell Medical College.” Weill Cornell Medical College | Weill Cornell Medicine Samuel J. Wood Library, library.weill.cornell.edu/archives/weill-cornell-medical-college.