420 Comments for Renwick Smallpox Hospital

wow. it actually has doors

Why doesn't someone make use of this structure - use the shell and make condo or coops

I love all the photos taken of this old building. I was reading City Of Bones by Cassandra Clare and they mentioned this building in the story. Just curious I googled it and to my surprise it is a real building. It is sad to see it go to ruin. I think to if these walls could talk what horror stories it would tell. They didn’t have medical help back in the day like they have now. Poor sick people pretty much went here to die.

kinda dangerous dontchya think?

like a waterfall of ivy

this thing cannot stand much longer. it needs a preservation effort

I'd have never have guessed that this was a hospital

I see this place every day (my apartment looks on to Roosevelt Island) but I was never able to really admire the beautiful facade this place has from that distance. Thanks so much for posting this!

I reconized this location from the movie "Spiderman"..

I love old historic place like this. It hard to believe that the City has done nothing with it.

this is so sad. At least in the other facilities you could find remnants of the people there, and the lives they led. Here theres nothing

Horrible that such beautiful architecture is left to crumble. People have such little respect for the past when there is supposedly more money to be made in the future...

I wish I had been old enough to appreciate the city's original brick hospital, St. Mary's, before the brick structure was torn down to put in a basketball court. I now live across the street from where that old building stood, and I have little to no information about it. I believe it was opened in 1861, served through the Civil War, and was state-of-the-art until additions were built behind and around it in the 50s and 60s. In the 70s, a new hospital - Blessing - was constructed just a few blocks west, also on the main road, and by the 80s they were the leading hospital in the area with a large bed count and many talented doctors and nurses there. In the early to mid 90s, Blessing bought out the then-emptied St. Mary's building, tore down one of the two original brick structures (the other, assumedly a small laundry or power facility with an awesome smokestack, is still standing and I can see it out of my bedroom window), and emptied out the St. Mary's building. The 50s building is now used mostly for outpatient treatment, a few offices, the hospital employee's apparel shop, and on the top floor there is the psychiatric ward (lovingly called 6th floor) so that they could keep their psychiatric patients in a separate building from their other paying patients in the Blessing building. I believe that most of the floors are now abandoned, and my husband has not-so-fond memories of going up alone to clean a couple of the floors. He said it was creepy being alone up there, and the colors and architecture was most obviously from the 50s or so.

Looks like a castle,like he said.Too bad,it would be awesome to turn it into a house,or apartments....Or make a copy of it.

looks perfect for a scary movie.....but i`m sure too unsafe.

That is an amazing picture. m/