Smallpox Hospital

The Smallpox Hospital, a Gothic Revival structure designed by James Renwick, Jr., opened to the public on December 18, 1856 as the first hospital in the country dedicated to treating smallpox, a highly contagious and deadly viral disease. Renwick, whose first commission at age 23 was Grace Church in New York City, also completed St. Patrick's Cathedral on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and the Smithsonian Institution building in Washington, DC, and served as supervising architect of the lighthouse on the northern tip of Roosevelt Island. Originally consisting of a rectangular central bay measuring roughly 100 feet by 40 feet and rising three stories, the granite building was constructed from stone quarried on the island and built by prison labor. In 1875 it was renamed Riverside Hospital, and in 1886 it was converted to a nursing school called the Home for the Nurses of the Maternity and Charity Hospital Training School. Its northern and southern wings were completed in the early 1900s to add classrooms, laboratories, and dormitories. In the 1950s the nursing school closed, the building was abandoned, and it was stripped of floor planes, stairwells, and windows; it has remained an empty Gothic ruin ever since, largely surviving as its shell. The structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the New York State Register of Historic Places, and the ruin is also designated a New York City Landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

New York, New York · United States