New York Methodist Hospital Sharing Your Past,

506 Sixth Street Brooklyn, New York Caring for Your Future 11215 718.780.3000 www.nym.org

New York Methodist Hospital Celebrating 125 Years of Service Message to our Community

In observance of New York Methodist Hospital’s 125th anniversary this year, we have created a new written histor y of the Hospital. No New Yorkers are prouder of their heritage than Brooklynites and we hope that you will enjoy this retrospective view of an impor tant Brooklyn institution and the community it ser ves.

At the same time that we are commemorating a centur y and a quarter of caring for Brooklyn, we are also celebrating the opening of our new patient care pavilion. The new building houses a significantly expanded Emergency Department, a new Pediatrics Unit, our Nuclear Medicine Division and several new inpatient floors with a large number of private patient rooms. The new space will allow us to Mark J. Mundy enhance our cardiology program, add beds to our mater nity service President and Chief and neonatal intensive care unit and expand ser vices in several other Executive Officer clinical areas. With great excitement, we look ahead to a future as Brooklyn’s premier hospital.

With great excitement, we look ahead Completion of such a substantial project during this banner year is a happy coincidence that highlights our enduring commitment to to a future as Brooklyn’s premier hospital. our mission: to provide excellent and compassionate care to the people of Brooklyn. With the continued hard work of the physicians, nurses, health professionals, support staff members, trustees and volunteers who serve our Hospital, we are confident that New York Methodist will be able to invite Br ooklynites to celebrate many more significant anniversaries as we move through the 21st century.

John E. Carrington Chairman of the Board

2 3 igh above the East It was also a busy year for the 1881 River, workmen and Reverend James Monroe Buckley , editor engineers inched of the influential Methodist Episcopal closer to finishing periodical The Christian Advocate . was a busy the “new eighth Buckley, formerly the pastor of a congre - OPPOSITE: The Brooklyn wonder of the gation on Hanson Place, had set his heart Bridge, c.1883, from the Brooklyn side, drawn just Hworld,” the great bridge that would link on founding a new hospital. The clergy- after it opened. (Harper’s year in New York City and Brooklyn, the man’s motivation for this ambitious task Weekly; May 26, 1883) nation’s first and third lar gest cities. was a tragic accident of a sor t that Beneath the bridge, in the shipyards, occurred all too fr equently in the city’ s Brooklyn. foundries, refineries and warehouses of crowded streets. Y ears earlier, when BELOW: The Hospital was founded as Methodist Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Red Hook, Buckley had been minister to a congrega- Episcopal Hospital; this hammers rose and fell and machiner y tion in Stamford, Connecticut, his church early seal was used from the institution’s inception. hummed, noisy testimony to the indus- organist had been str uck by a r unaway try and commerce that made Brooklyn team of horses while visiting New Y ork the fourth leading American manufactur- City. The wounded man had to wait ing metropolis. an hour before an ambulance The city continued to grow by leaps could be found to take him to and bounds, its population swollen by an an “unhomelike institu- ongoing influx of European emigrants tion,” where his ar m was who had more than doubled Kings amputated. Within hours County’s population in 20 years, he died. to a total of nearly 600,000 by 1880. As Buckley was well businessmen and builders plotted the aware that as Brooklyn development of new residential districts continued to gro w, such to house this burgeoning population accidents, as well as the and planned new transit lines to move other health emergencies commuters between home and work, besetting an expanding popula- Brooklynites enjoyed themselves listen- tion, required new and state-of-the- ing to concerts at their own Academy of art hospital facilities. As a Methodist, he Music, taking a dip in the ocean at Coney also felt that his denomination should Island or cheering on their own Brooklyn play a role in implementing and sustain- Atlantics at the Union Base Ball Grounds ing the medical and social ser vices that in Williamsburg. an increasingly urban America needed.

5 Founding This badly faded, but much prized photograph was State of New Y ork. On September 21st taken on September 21, 1881, at the cer emony to lay of that year , they laid the cor nerstone the Hospital’s cornerstone, as Reverend James Monroe Fathers Buckley delivered an address. for the Hospital’ s main building. Construction commenced on the first he Reverend James Monroe Buckley faced a daunting three of what was supposed to be a grand task on the day he entered George Ingraham Seney’ s total of nine hospital buildings. Toffice at the Metropolitan National Bank in Manhattan to ask for a donation to help educate a fatherless boy . Businesslike to the point of brusqueness, Seney was the very model of a successful Gilded Age banker for whom time was money. “Can you possibly give Early Years me two minutes?” the minister asked the banker . As Buckley later recalled, Reverend James Monroe Buckley, Buckley and Seney may have given bir th He took out his watch and looked at me like a caged lion, and said: “I will give you three left, and George to a hospital, but its infancy proved frail minutes,” and then looked me in the face. Ingraham Seney. and uncertain. Creating a hospital turned I said “Need six men, twenty-five dollars a piece a year , for six years; have got all but one; out to be an expensive business. In 1884, Oliver Hoyt is one, William Hoyt another.” He said, “Put me down.” with the shells of the main building and That first encounter opened the door for the founding of Methodist Hospital. After Buckley two side pavilions nearing completion, called for such a hospital in Januar y 1881, Seney offered him donations that eventually totaled George Seney’s Metropolitan National $410,000, bestowing his initial gift with the words, “Go build your hospital.” So single handedly Bank failed when the value of its invest- did the banker provide the seed money for the new institution that in its early years many knew 1881 In January 1881 he used the columns of ments in unreliable railroad securities it simply as “The Seney Hospital.” Methodist Episcopal The Christian Advocate to challenge his plummeted. While Seney’s contributions For the Reverend Buckley, matters of health had pressing personal as well as public signifi- Hospital is chartered fellow Methodists to establish such a to the Hospital by this time totaled cance. Tuberculosis had taken the lives of his father and two of his grandparents, and Buckley (May 27); cornerstone facility, asking them, “Is it not time that $410,000, the beneficence of the institu- himself struggled with the disease throughout his life. Like many Protestant clerics of his day , he laid for main building somewhere we built a hospital?” tion’s principal philanthropist now came supported the temperance movement to prohibit alcohol consumption, and opposed theater-going (September 21) Buckley’s challenge was promptly to an abrupt halt as did work on the three as morally unhealthy. George Seney was a more worldly man, an ambitious businessman who answered by George Ingraham Seney , a hospital buildings. In order to give their worked himself up from a starting position as teller to become a leading banker of his day , a prominent banker, art connoisseur, project a fighting chance for sur vival, the generous philanthropist to Wesleyan and Emory Universities, and a devotee of European and 1883 American painting whose acquisitions today grace the collections of the Metr opolitan Museum Brooklyn Bridge opens to Methodist layman and Brooklyn resident. Hospital’s board of managers appointed of Art and other museums. In funding the Hospital, Seney sought to honor the memor y of his the public; a minor-league Seney pledged $100,000 and several land the Reverend George P. Mains as financial father, a Methodist minister, and he agreed with Buckley that the Hospital should be placed baseball team, the Brooklyn lots to begin constr uction of the hospital agent. By soliciting contributions from under the supervision of the Methodist Episcopal Church. But he also insisted that it be “a Baseball Association, is organ- pavilions, and to incorporate the institu- Methodists all over the countr y, Mains ized; later becomes the GENERAL HOSPITAL, open to Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic, Heathen and Infidel, tion and appoint a board of tr ustees. On was able to raise the $100,000 that permit- Brooklyn Dodgers. Seventh on the same terms.” Avenue (Brooklyn) horsecar May 27, 1881, the Methodist Episcopal ted builders to complete one facility , the The joint legacy to Brooklyn that Buckley and Seney together cr eated in 1881 lives on in line begins operation. Hospital was born when Buckley and his 70-bed West Pavilion. On December 19, New York Methodist Hospital. As Buckley later noted wr yly of their initial encounter, “if I had associates obtained a char ter from the 1887, the Methodist Episcopal H ospital taken four minutes, I doubt if I would have a dollar for the boy or later for the hospital.”

6 7 The Accomplished admitted its first patient, followed by five With the Main Building unfinished 1887 more before the end of the year. due to lack of funds, the W est Pavilion Dr. Pilcher Methodist Episcopal In its first year of operation, the quickly proved to be cramped quarters for Hospital admits Hospital’s medical faculty numbered 16: all the activities taking place there. its first patient n 1881, James Monroe Buckley invited his friend Lewis Stephen Pilcher , M.D., to two attending surgeons (including Lewis Surgeons operated on patients in an attic (December 19). organize the medical and surgical departments of a new hospital to be erected in Park Slope. S. Pilcher, M.D., president of the hallway on the W est Pavilion’s fourth Pratt Institute I The energetic 36-year-old surgeon jumped at the chance. Hospital’s Medical Board), two attending floor. As one doctor remember ed, “The is founded. After serving in the Civil War and obtaining his medical degree from the University of physicians, four assistants, two consult- chimney piece served to hang our ir rigat- Michigan, Pilcher opened a private surgical practice in Brooklyn. He viewed Buckley’ s invitation as ing physicians, two consulting surgeons, ing apparatus upon; the fireplace ser ved an opportunity to create in Brooklyn a major hospital that would incorporate the latest innovations one pathologist and a house staff of three as a receptacle for the soiled clothes ham- in surgical technique and medical administration. additional doctors. The Hospital also per; and the walls were painted white in Pilcher undertook his assignment at a moment in histor y when American hospitals, abetted 1888 attracted a small suppor t staff of order to get some approach to that purity by revolutions in the use of anesthesia and antisepsis, were attaining unprecedented impor tance The Hospital “internes,” new doctors in need of post- and cleanliness so necessary for operating as centers for surgical practice. opens its graduate training, who among their other room work. Whenever a splint was need- Fully grasping the opportunity before him, he embarked in 1884 on a three-month fact- Training School for Nurses. finding tour of the hospitals of Ger many, England and Scotland in order to lay the groundwork duties were responsible for examining ed, an attendant would dive through the for Methodist as a state-of-the-art surgical and medical center. His meetings with European and recommending admission of new trap door into the dark gar ret of the West innovators such as Joseph Lister inspired Pilcher to envision the Park Slope hospital as an patients. Pavilion and bring it forth.” institution that would adhere to the most moder n scientific methods in the training, medical practice and administrative organization of doctors, surgeons and nurses. His involvement in planning the new hospital extended to his designing much of the actual physical plant of operating rooms and patient wards so as to embody what he had lear ned in Europe. When the hospital opened in 1887, Pilcher brought his vision to fr uition by serving Lewis Stephen as president of its medical board and as attending surgeon, persisting in his work for 20 years Pilcher, M.D., toured European hospitals and devoting himself to the goal of helping the institution overcome its early financial and to bring the latest spatial constraints. innovations in During his years at Methodist (where two of his sons assisted him as inter ns and then as medical and surgical techniques to surgeons), Pilcher gained fame as one of the nation’ s leading surgeons and its preeminent surgical Park Slope. journalist. He made important contributions to surgical knowledge in the fields of wound treatment, intestinal surgery and tracheotomy for the treatment of diphtheria. In 1884 he founded

the Annals of Surgery, the first journal in the English language devoted exclusively to sur gery, LEFT: An engraving of which became a crucial medium for the dissemination of surgical knowledge on both sides of the the Hospital, c. 1887, showing the original Atlantic. Pilcher served as its editor for half a centur y, retiring from the Annals at the age of 89. buildings on Sixth Street. A tireless worker for more than two decades after he left Methodist Hospital, Pilcher did not forget his accomplishments on Sixth Street, nor his critical role in bringing the hospital into being. “During twenty-six of the years of my life which included the period of greatest and most fruitful activity,” he observed in 1925, “I gave this institution the first place in my thoughts and energies.”

89 Four years later , the Hospital when Brooklyn’s first hospital, Kings Superintendent’s office was located in the County Hospital, was opened as an basement, the matron was housed in a almshouse infirmary in 1831, and it made-over elevator shaft and the kitchen remained so when Buckley and Seney cre- and laundry “rumbled and smoked in the ated Methodist Episcopal 50 years later . 1889 basement and annoyed visitors, private If the poorest and often least hopeful The Children’s Ward patients, officers and the occupants of our cases — sick prisoners, the mentally ill, opens. Children’s Ward.” Still, the staff held high “vagrants” and the homeless — ambitions for making the Hospital a ended up in city-r un public center of medical care and education for facilities like Kings County, pri- Brooklyn and beyond. In 1888 the vate hospitals such as Hospital opened its T raining School for Methodist existed to ser ve the Nurses, which immediately proved to be vast laboring population that a highly effective educational program as philanthropists described as the well as a source of nursing support for the “worthy poor.” Thus Methodist doctors. The Children’s Ward, opened in initially served Brooklyn’s working class 1889, inaugurated Methodist’ s commit- immigrants and their American-bor n ment to pediatric care for Brooklyn’ s children. But the Hospital also linked 1891 youngest residents. their world (if briefly) to that of a different Montauk Club opens set of Brooklyn residents, the financially in Park Slope. comfortable native-born men and women who administered the Hospital’ s affairs, Crossroads provided its medical ser vices and raised funds to keep it going. While Buckley and for the City Seney may have located their hospital in LEFT: Doctors and nurses, In the late 19th centur y, hospitals wer e Park Slope because land happened to be c.1893, treated wounds, not yet the complex medical centers serv- available there, their choice also put the epilepsy, “hysteria,” typhoid fever, opium ing diverse populations that we recognize Hospital strategically in a zone between and gas poisoning, today. Traditionally, hospitals functioned these two social worlds. and even performed as charitable institutions for the care of a A mere two blocks to the east lay corrective surgery for a veteran whose legs city’s poorest inhabitants. Doctors treated the exclusive and privileged world of the were amputated in patients, usually for free or for a nominal “Gold Coast,” the domain of wealthy the Civil War. fee, in bar racks-like public wards that merchants and professionals and their afforded no privacy . This had been tr ue families whose townhouses faced Prospect

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Park. From here and the adjoining Brooklyn, areas teeming with families The Hospital’s horse-drawn ambulance, described as neighborhoods of “brownstone Brooklyn,” who could never or only rarely afford care “the most perfect vehicle Buckley and Seney recruited board mem- from physicians in private practice. of its kind ever constructed bers, doctors, volunteers and others inter- Methodist’s central location, and the in America,” was originally staffed by interns. 1893 ested in suppor ting the Hospital. Help transit networks that brought patients to Seventh Avenue came from devout Methodists, such as and from its door , made it an ef fective horsecar line switches the middle-class ladies who for med institution for reaching Brooklyn resi - to electricity, runs as Florence Nightingale Societies in several dents in medical jeopardy. Like the other streetcar line until 1951. Brooklyn congregations to raise money electric trolley lines that increasingly Directions for the Hospital. Ministers passed around crisscrossed the city, the Seventh Avenue to the Hospital the donation plate on Hospital Sundays, Line provided easy access to the Hospital Persons coming to the Grand Central when they preached ser mons to raise from throughout Kings County and, Station should take funds for what would eventually be called via the Brooklyn Bridge, for visitors from the elevated railroad the “Mother Hospital of Methodism.” Manhattan. Just as critically , the (Third Avenue) to 1895 Aid also came from other affluent Hospital’s horse-drawn ambulance, Brooklyn Bridge, and, East Pavilion dispensary crossing the Bridge to is opened as an Brooklynites and New Yorkers, including manned by “inter nes” and described as Brooklyn, take Seventh outpatient clinic. members of the Havemeyer , Hoyt and Avenue electric car to Pratt families, who, regardless of their the Hospital. religious affiliation, viewed care of the Persons coming by sick and injured poor to be a responsibili- Weehawken should cross to Franklin Street ty of the “better classes.” “the most perfect vehicle of its kind ever encompassing the vast majority of its and thence to the constructed in America,” could go for th patient caseload. While some of this sur- Bridge (five minutes along Brooklyn’s wide avenues and nar- gery was elective, much of it consisted of walk) by Chambers few blocks to the rower streets to bring back individuals emergency cases r ushed to the Hospital Street horse car, then proceed as above. southwest of the stricken by sudden illness or injur y in by its ambulance. As the Hospital’ s first Persons coming by the Hospital could be their homes, workplaces or in the streets. annual report observed in 1888, “the great Pennsylvania or Lehigh found a more mixed Eventually the Hospital would own at strain which our intense modern life puts Valley Railroad can RIGHT: Elegant 19th area of middle-class least two of these horse-drawn vehicles so upon both body and mind” jeopardized take the Annex ferry to century brownstones, row houses inter- as to enable inter ns to travel to simulta- the well-being of Brooklynites in the Brooklyn, and then the originally the domain of Seventh Avenue car to spersed with workers’ tenements, facto- neous emergencies in different par ts of forms of industrial machiner y, urban wealthy merchants and A the Hospital. professionals who helped ries and small businesses. The Hospital Brooklyn. overcrowding and traffic, and “the multi- support the Hospital, FROM The Methodist still characterize the served members of this community , and In its earliest years the Hospital plication of vices always associated Episcopal Hospital Annual Park Slope streetscape also catered to the crowded tenement dis- divided its ser vices between the “med- with crowded populations,” including Report, 1902 in the 21st century. tricts stretching nor th and west across ical” and the “surgical,” with the latter alcoholism and addiction.

12 13 A Legacy of Skill Early case repor ts bear this out. and Compassion Patients during the Hospital’ s first year included a 17-year-old boy str uck by a 1897 locomotive, a man in his 20s injured at Steeplechase Park opens, n 1888, four pupils and four “probationers” became lectures (eventually including two on gynecology and Chicago to Ireland, Denmark, and a U.S. mili- sea by a falling mast, and a 55-year-old inaugurating Coney the first students of the new Methodist Episcopal delivered by Dr. Florence Leigh-Jones, one of the era’s tary post in the Philippines. Many remained active Island’s heyday as an Hospital’s Training School for Nurses. With hospi- rare female physicians), study manuals and textbooks, nurses, serving hospitals nationwide. Helen B. man hit by a der rick chain. In 1899, a I amusement center. tals sprouting up to meet the needs of an industrial and and assist the doctors in the wards, operating room, and Riley, Class of 1892, who later mar ried Dr. John fairly typical year , the Hospital’ s ambu- Brooklyn Public Library urban America (4,500 were founded between 1885 and outpatient department. While the Hospital lodged and Schapps, presumably assisted him with the lance made 1,376 calls, transpor ting 376 is organized, and the patients he served in the town of Pony, Montana. individuals with wounds, 186 who had 1915), Methodist’s board and administrators recognized fed the students, it defrayed the program’s costs by Brooklyn Institute of that such a school would provided a vital training employing them as unpaid student nurses, it being The most famous graduate was Doris Schwar tz, sustained contusions, 120 with fractures Arts and Sciences (later ground not only locally but nationally as well. understood that such work constituted a key element R.N., author of Give Us To Go Blithely, My Fifty and 76 suffering from alcoholism. renamed the Brooklyn The Training School instituted a three-year in their education. The school proved a success. In Years of Nursing, and a pioneer in developing Workplace hazards brought patients to Museum of Art) opens. curriculum, conducted by the Hospital faculty and a 1899, the Hospital could report that “the enthusiasm, training programs for advanced nurse practitioners, the Hospital for both surgical and medical especially in geriatrics and family medicine. Supervisor of Nurses, in which students lear ned “the intelligence, and excellent training of these nurses have care. Injured constr uction workers were outlines of anatomy and physiology,” how to dress been favorably acknowledged, and their services are The Hospital came of age in the period when carried in frequently as they built Park 1898 wounds, and how to apply “fomentations, poultices, much in demand elsewhere as well as in this city.” modern social work was born, and in 1911 the Slope and adjoining districts. Doctors The Hospital cares for cups and leeches.” They also lear ned the proper In an era of rigid gender roles, nursing was one of Hospital appointed Miss Lucy C. Catlin, R.N., as noted that workers in Brooklyn’ s freight Spanish-American War methods for disinfecting utensils, making beds, and for the few professional fields open to middle-class women. its first social service nurse. Miss Catlin admitted veterans. patients to the Hospital’s outpatient department, yards, foundries and sugar refineries suf- “preparing, cooking and serving delicacies to the sick.” Methodist presumed it would have an unmar ried Greater New York fered frequently from various pulmonar y The student nurses were required to attend frequent female student body when it instructed new pupils coordinated the Hospital’s work with other relief City comes into being to bring with them “two dresses and one wrapper of agencies, and became Methodist’s official “home illnesses. As a community hospital, (January 1), absorbing gingham or some other wash material, made plainly; visitor,” bringing services directly to patients Methodist treated patients for a seeming- the city of Brooklyn as six large white aprons... plain underclothing; all marked in their homes. Caring for the social as well as ly endless variety of ailments and afflic- one of its five boroughs. with the owner’s name.” Applicants had to be between medical needs of patients remained a key element tions, ranging from epilepsy , “hysteria,” the ages of 21 and 35, signifying that many wer e of nursing (and nursing education) at Methodist typhoid fever, and opium and gas poison- making a choice between marriage and a career. over the decades to come, and lives on in the ing, to providing corrective surgery for Hospital’s range of outreach services. Within a decade, word of the school had spread a veteran whose legs had been ampu- widely, largely through the Methodist Church In 1971, due to the increased demand for tated during the Civil W ar. It also grapevine. Students in 1899 came from as far afield nurses to have both B.A. and R.N. degr ees, the became the principal health center as Canada, Colorado and “Dakota.” That same year , the Hospital closed its School of Nursing. Over the Hospital noted that of its 123 nursing graduates, 20 had course of 83 years, 2,700 nurses had obtained for the young single women, many married (four of them to doctors), 65 still resided in their training and received their first professional of them immigrants, who worked Brooklyn, while others were scattered from Los Angeles hospital experience here. It was a legacy that left as live-in domestic ser vants, cooks its mark, not only in Brooklyn but around the and nannies for the moneyed families The Methodist Episcopal Hospital’s Training School for Nurses, class of 1920. Some 2,700 nurses graduated world, wherever Methodist-trained nurses served occupying Park Slope’s new brownstone from the school during its 83-year existence. patients with skill and compassion. townhouses.

14 15 In vowing to ser ve the “wor thy and also included a number of Brooklyn resi- deserving poor,” Methodist opened its dents born in the West Indies, most likely doors to the constituents of Brooklyn’ s members of the city’ s Afro-Caribbean ethnic mosaic. In 1898, for example, out population. “Very of a total of 1,381 patients, 951 had been Desirable born in the United States, although this Gifts” number probably included many children of immigrants. The other 430 had been Financial The question is frequently asked: born in a total of 18 foreign countries, What gifts aside from with Ireland, Germany, England, Sweden Challenges money are the most and Italy the leading contributors, repre - Keeping the Hospital financially healthy acceptable to the senting the influx of nor thern and, remained an uphill battle. While hospital? Among the most practical increasingly, southern Europeans into Methodist possessed the largest endow- gifts are furnishings Brooklyn. While the majority of patients ment fund of any Brooklyn hospital in for beds. adhered to one or another of the 1890, its costs skyrocketed during the outfit for one bed Protestant denominations (269 were next decade, making it impossible to fin- pillow case Methodists), the single largest religious ish construction on its planned complex two sheets group was the 362 Roman Catholic of buildings. One cause was the financial two blankets, patients, a natural development in a peri- depression that thre w millions of all wool, white od when so many European Catholic emi- Americans out of work in the mid-1890s counterpane grants found a home in Brooklyn. Thir ty- and hit Brooklyn as hard as any other quilt one Jews and five who listed their religion community. As increasing numbers of two hand towels as “none” were also present. In an era men, women and children lost their jobs, two table napkins two undervests for when racial exclusion and segregation in the demand for free medical care shot up. men or women Brooklyn and New Y ork City for ced In order to ser ve the swelling population two night garments blacks into separate restaurants, theater of those desperate for treatment, the for men or women galleries, schools and spor ts teams, the Hospital reduced the amount of time a Hospital had from the star t made a com- given patient could occupy a bed; an aver- FROM The Methodist Episcopal Hospital Annual mitment to be “open to the sick of all age stay in the Hospital declined from Report, 1908 lands and colors.” Methodist confir med almost 22 days in the early years to 18 Three scenes from the Hospital dispensary, which provided this commitment when in 1888 it admit- days in 1899. To relieve the strain by pro- free outpatient care to out-of-work Brooklynites and their families. Opened in response to the financial depression in ted as one of its earliest patients a 16- viding some medical ser vices on an out- the 1890s, the dispensary provided free treatment to some year-old “colored girl” in need of skin patient basis, the Hospital in 1895 turned 16,000 visitors a year. It was originally funded by donations from former interns. grafts for burns, and its early patient rolls the first floor rooms of the East Pavilion

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into a dispensar y (an outpatient clinic), in perpetuity. Closer to home, Dr . thus broadening the reach of an initial Breckenridge delivered stirring fund-rais- dispensary program established in 1889 ing sermons to Methodist congregations but at that time limited only to for mer throughout New Y ork City and Long Hospital patients. The new dispensar y, Island, while the ladies of the Brooklyn paid for out of donations by for mer Florence Nightingale Societies delivered Hospital interns, was soon providing free $1,300 for the construction of an elevator treatment to some 16,000 yearly visitors. in the West Pavilion. Despite financial pressures, Hospital From its inception, Methodist also board members and administrators sought to defray costs by adopting a poli- remained committed to a vision of cy that would soon become the nor m for expanding the Hospital’ s services and American hospitals: Requesting or requir- facilities, a vision that proved costly to ing that patients pay for at least some of realize even as it promised a healthier their care. In 1888 the Hospital future for Brooklyn. In 1888, the announced that it was “necessary to limit ABOVE: The Barnier Room was the first Hospital’s annual repor t had noted that the number of free patients, and to ask private room to be while Brooklyn contained a total of 920 that those who can pay a par t or the physicians and surgeons attended middle- The Hospital pharmacist, endowed for $20,000. hospital beds (70 of them at Methodist, whole of the cost of their maintenance class Americans in their homes or in pri- c. 1900. New scientific Elizabeth Barnier methods available at donated the money in the rest at seven other hospitals), the City should do so.” The Hospital’ s trustees vate offices, most viewed hospitals as Methodist attracted doctors honor of her parents. of Brooklyn needed one hospital bed for noted that a patient who could pay for a dens of contagion where the poor went to and their middle-class every 500 residents— a ratio that required bed in one of the Hospital’s “open wards” die. To change this perception, Methodist patients. Fees collected RIGHT: Raising money from these patients helped was key to the Hospital’s a city-wide total of 1,600 beds. The should be contributing $1.50 a day or $10 (and other hospitals) began to provide pri- to subsidize the free care continued success. This Hospital’s Superintendent, the Reverend weekly for his or her care. Meanwhile, a vate rooms and special meals to paying given to those who couldn’t “Benefactors Wanted” afford it. notice appeared in many Dr. John Breckenridge, canvassed tireless- small number of private rooms would be patients, and offered admitting and oper- early annual reports and ly to raise funds to per mit Methodist to available at a cost of between $15 and $30 ating privileges to Brooklyn doctors who other publications. both survive and expand. In nationwide weekly (this at a time when a skilled brought their private patients to the campaigns, Breckenridge successfully Brooklyn workman earned about $15 for Hospital. Methodist fur ther attracted solicited funds from Methodist congrega- a 60-hour week, and working women doctors and paying patients by providing tions and Conferences as far afield as rarely earned more than $7 weekly). bacteriological and surgical equipment in Maine, Ohio and W est Virginia. He The Hospital’s goal was to attract a an era when the discoveries of Lister , appealed to donors to endow hospital middle-class clientele whose payments Koch, Pasteur and Roentgen were trans- beds at Methodist “in perpetuity” for would offset the costs of providing free or forming medicine, thus providing physi- $5,000, or by the year at $365 annually . reduced-fee service to their less fortunate cians with access to new knowledge and By 1889, some 13 beds had been endowed fellow Brooklynites. In an era when technologies they might not be able to

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find or afford in private practice. The of the “boys in blue,” including 4 5 Hospital used this income to enable it to who had been evacuated to Camp continue its “free work” for non-paying Wykoff on Long Island and then patients. As the trustees declared in 1888, transported by trolley line to Park “no one will ever be refused admission on Slope. Although many were “burn- account of inability to pay unless the ing with fevers which seemed resources of the Hospital have been beyond human control,” under the exhausted.” Indeed, 20 years later , in watchful care of the Hospital’ s 1908, approximately two-thirds of the doctors and nurses, only one of the Hospital’s services were still being soldiers died. Meanwhile, Brooklyn’s cit- provided to patients free of charge. izens donated goods to make the veterans 1900 The Hospital’s Surgical comfortable. A Miss MacBennet, for Pavilion is completed. example, collected “under clothing, sta- Brooklyn’s population he 20th centur y arrived tionery, postage stamps, ice cream and reaches 1,166,582, two years early for delicacies” for distribution among the second only to Brooklyn. On January 1, recuperating soldiers. Manhattan’s among 1898, Greater New York The new centur y also ushered in a the five boroughs. City officially came into period of renewed building and expansion being. Overnight, Brooklyn for the Hospital. A surgical pavilion was Tlost its identity as an autonomous city completed in 1900, the same year that and became one of New Y ork City’s five electricity replaced gaslight in some of 1903 The Williamsburg Bridge boroughs. With more than one million the Hospital’s facilities. In 1902 philan- and Coney Island’s residents, Brooklyn automatically helped thropist William A. Halls, Jr . offered to Luna Park open. to transform Greater New Y ork into the share the cost of completing the long- world’s second largest city (following awaited Main Building and West Pavilion London). The new era would prove event- if the Hospital raised funds for the ful both for Brooklyn and for Methodist purpose. As a result, in December 1906 Hospital. For example, for the first (but the Hospital was able to dedicate and OPPOSITE: Doctors and not the last) time in its histor y, the open the Halls Administrative Building. nurses, c. 1919, hold Hospital provided care for American ser- By then, the Hospital had opened an newborns in the maternity ward nursery. Within a vicemen during and after one of the coun- Obstetrics Department, which immedi- few decades, Methodist try’s wars. In the after math of American ately became one of the busiest and most would become known victory in Cuba in the Spanish-American popular services. By 1907, the Hospital’ s as “The Baby Hospital,” because of its large War of 1898, the Hospital took in some 95 original 70 beds had grown to 200. number of births.

20 21 The staff and tr ustees in 1912 could and orderlies on the floor; the attendings look back proudly on 25 years of ser vice arriving, the friends of patients coming, in which the Hospital had cared for a total messenger boys with flowers...” W ith 1906 of 42,879 inpatients, provided nearly $1 Brooklyn’s population sur ging toward million in free care and over 100,000 out- two million, Methodist had ever y reason Halls Administrative patient dispensary visits. Superintendent to remain a center of activity. Building is completed. Abram S. Kavanagh noted in 1914 how a This new era was not without its visitor who spent an hour in one of the growing pains. T ensions between the Hospital’s hallways had been “amazed” Hospital’s house physicians and attending at the amount of activity he obser ved. physicians (doctors in private practice The visitor “had seldom been in a place who brought paying patients into the where so much was going on. The nurses Hospital and enjoyed admitting and oper-

1907 ating privileges) proved to be one such As always, money matters lay at the These naval ward patients The Hospital now problem. Competition between the two heart of most of the Hospital’s challenges. were among the nearly holds 200 patient beds 1,200 soldiers who sought groups for Hospital resources and privi- While in 1888 the average cost of a day’ s (up from the original 70). treatment in 1918. The leges accounted for most of the friction. stay for a patient had been $1.01, by 1917 Hospital also cared for soldiers during the The Hospital implemented a partial reso- it had risen to $2.65. As costs climbed and Spanish-American War 1908 lution in 1915, when the administration New York City’s private hospitals became and World War II. The IRT subway links agreed to reorganize its surgical ser vice increasingly reliant on funding from the Brooklyn to Manhattan. under two head surgeons. This change municipal government to under write About two thirds of the also reflected a new age in which care, Methodist faced an official city for- Hospital’s services are American doctors were acquiring more mula that forbade payment for several still provided to patients OPPOSITE: Interns in 1918 — control over day-to-day hospital opera- categories of patient care and limited pub- the first year the Hospital free of charge. tions. The Hospital’ s Medical Board , lic subsidies to an amount half the actual permitted female interns to join the program — pose which consisted of its senior , attending, cost of “charity” care. While private phi- in the operating room. 1909 and consulting physicians and surgeons, lanthropists and Brooklyn businesses The number of women physicians at Methodist Manhattan Bridge opens, gained the right to nominate their own (including the Abraham & Straus continued to grow, especially third bridge to connect representatives to the Hospital’s Board of Department Store and the Ansonia Clock during World War I and Brooklyn and Manhattan. Trustees, and the power to nominate or Company, whose employees presumably World War II, when military service called many young reject candidates for positions on the benefited from the Hospital’ s proximity) men away. attending staff. In earlier years, the lay continued to offer financial gifts, the Board of Managers had appointed all struggle of Methodist and other hospitals physicians. with the city for increased funding fore -

22 23

1911 shadowed a centur y’s worth of battles infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis) swept Lucy N. Catlin becomes over public reimbursement. the New York area. Ironically, however, the Hospital’s first Patriotism overshadowed such mat- the polio epidemic had actually reduced “social service nurse,” ters in 1917, when, following American patronage at the Hospital’s popular outpa- initiating the Hospital’s entry into World War I, the Hospital put tient dispensary, as parents avoided con- social work department. its West Pavilion at the federal gover n- gregating with their children in a setting Brooklyn Botanic ment’s disposal. As doctors and inter ns where contagion might be rife. The flu Garden opens. volunteered or were drafted into militar y epidemic, conversely, filled the Hospital service and the Hospital became a collec- to the point of overflowing. As flu victims 1912 tion point for clothing and supplies occupied beds and cots in the Hospital’ s Methodist Episcopal donated to the troops, Methodist faced a typhoid ward and even in makeshift areas Hospital celebrates its staff shortage. Fortunately, most of the of the Halls Building, 62 nurses also came 25th anniversary. 1,173 convalescing U.S. Navy seamen down with the illness. In light of the city- whom the Hospital ser ved in 1918 were wide emergency, the Hospital ultimately not in need of serious medical or surgical turned over its wards to the city for the 1913 care, and thus did not over whelm the care of flu-stricken public charity patients. Ebbets Field opens as home stadium for the staff’s ability to serve them. Brooklyn Dodgers. On the other hand, the influenza epi- demic that struck Brooklyn that year, and which killed 20 million people world- Years of Growth 1916 wide, constituted a crisis. The Hospital and Challenge Polio epidemic strikes had already faced one public health emer- New York City. gency when, in 1916, an outbreak of The “roaring twenties” would witness new construction at the Hospital, includ- 1917-18 ing the erection of Ser vice Buildings One Hospital puts its facilities and Two in 1927-28 and the breaking of at federal disposal during ground for a new Nurses’ Residence in World War I, and treats 1929. By mid-decade, Methodist’ s total convalescing sailors; cares bed capacity had risen to 375. T o reach for patients during 1918 the Hospital during emergencies, influenza pandemic.

Young boy in the Hospital garden during the infantile One of two motorized ambulances, c.1920, used to transpor t paralysis (polio) outbreak of 1916. Ironically, patronage ill and injured Brooklynites to Methodist. Funds to purchase the at the Hospital declined because parents kept their chil- modern ambulances were donated by doctors and members of dren away from settings where they might be exposed. the Florence Nightengale Societies.

24 25

FAR RIGHT: Well-baby clinics, Brooklyn residents could now r ely on a in 1997, was one of the first babies bor n could insert ten dimes. Supplementing like this one c. 1937, General Motors ambulance (whose in the Maternity Building.) Obstetrics had Methodist’s regular Christmas fundraising contributed to the good health of Brooklyn’s $2,276 price tag had been met by funds become one of the Hospital’ s “growth” drive, the Red Stocking Appeal quickly youngest residents. donated by the doctors and Florence fields. In the Mater nity Building’s first became a popular way for Brooklyn’ s Nightingale Societies) that had replaced eight months, 863 babies were bor n, and young to raise money and awareness for the much-used old horse-drawn vehicles. the Hospital’s doctors made news in 1925 their community hospital. The Red Stocking Eventually the Hospital would possess when they delivered three sets of twins icon may be the earliest fundraising symbol two motorized ambulances in order to within 24 hours. in the countr y, predating the Easter Seal make emergency calls. Perhaps most Rising costs continued to accompany and March of Dimes campaigns. notable of the Hospital’ s new additions Hospital growth. The average daily cost The onset of the Great Depression in 1924 was the Maternity Building, completed in of providing for a patient had shot up to 1929 shattered the health as well as the West Pavilion, used for Maternity Service opens 1924 and known for several decades as $4.88 by 1925. It was in this period that dreams of countless New Yorkers. It also (now the Kirkwood the West Pavilion until 1997 when it was the Hospital’s fundraisers hit upon the put tremendous pressure on the city’ s Pavilion); 863 babies born renamed the W illiam C. Kirkwood idea of the Red Stocking Appeal, in which medical institutions to provide care while there in first 8 months. Pavilion. (Mr. Kirkwood, a Hospital Brooklyn schoolchildren and church having to slash expenses and cope with Congressional law curtails trustee for more than 20 years, ser ving as groups received cardboard folders shaped diminished revenues. As the Hospital’ s mass emigration from vice chairman from 1982 until his death like Christmas stockings in which they private rooms for paying patients stood southern and eastern empty, Brooklyn’s ill swamped its outpa- Europe, affecting Brooklyn’s population. tient dispensary and its free ward s. Conceived in the early Methodist also took in over flow patients 1920s, the Red Stocking from beleaguered public hospitals, put - Appeal was a popular way 1927-28 for Methodist Church ting further pressure on its own strained Service Buildings youth and Brooklyn school resources. By 1932, the trustees mandated One and Two open. children to raise money that all staff members whose salaries for the Hospital. The Red Stocking icon is one of the exceeded $80 a month take a ten percent country’s first fundraising wage cut. 1929 symbols, predating both the Stock market crash In 1935, some patients availed Easter Seal and March of starts the Great Dime campaigns. themselves of a new system of insured Depression. Brooklyn’s hospital payments, officially titled Group medicine” in an age of effor ts to secure tallest building, the Hospitalization in Greater New York but the health of all New Y orkers in the face Williamsburgh Savings popularly known as the “three-cents-a-day of rising medical costs. Bank Tower, is completed. plan.” Hospital Superintendent Chester Despite the economic disaster of the C. Marshall promoted the program as an Depression, the Hospital’s staff continued answer to the “demands for socialized to plan and innovate. In 1931, they affili-

26 27

ated with Long Island College Hospital in employees joined thousands of their fel- OPPOSITE: Nurses tend to order to receive undergraduate medical low Brooklyn residents ser ving their Brooklyn’s newest residents in the Hospital nursery. students for training. The Hospital’s long- country overseas or at home. But the war Methodist’s reputation cherished dream to augment the W est at least ended the bleak years of New as “The Baby Hospital” Pavilion became a reality with the open- York’s Depression. W ith defense jobs continued to grow. ing of the new Buckley Pavilion in 1942. opening up in the Navy Yard and in hun- The Hospital’s denominational ori- dreds of local businesses, more entation remained a key feature of its Brooklynites now had money in their identity. Board members and administra- pockets to pay for needed medical care. tors still described patients, regardless of Additionally, increasing numbers of them their religious beliefs, as “guests of the subscribed to one for m or another of church.” The Hospital provided vital health insurance; by 1950, for example, 1930 services to Methodist clergymen str ug- 44 percent of Methodist’s patients would Brooklyn is the city’s most gling with the onslaught of the have at least some of their hospital populous borough, with Depression. No case was more dramatic expenses paid by Blue Cross. This cir- 2,560,401 inhabitants. than that of the Reverend Lloyd W . cumstance foreshadowed a new , postwar 1935 Karschner, who in 1933 at age 75 hitch- medical economy, one in which hospitals Group Hospitalization hiked from his home in Millville, relied increasingly on the insurance bene- in Greater New York Pennsylvania, to Brooklyn because he fits of patients in addition to philanthro- goes into effect, offering knew the doctors at the Hospital would py, public reimbursement and the private insurance to New Yorkers; perform the cataract surger y he needed payments of well-to-do patients. forerunner of later health plans. but could not afford. The Hospital’s affili- ation also resulted in a name change. In 1939 1939, as the three American branches of Methodist Episcopal Methodism prepared to come together as A Borough Hospital renamed the United Methodist Church, Methodist The Methodist Hospital Episcopal Hospital officially became the and a Hospital of Brooklyn. Methodist Hospital of Brooklyn. The in Transition UMC and the Hospital have since 1941 replaced their corporate connection with The postwar years were a bit like a ride on United States enters World War II a “traditional” relationship. the Coney Island Cyclone for Brooklyn. (December 8); many American entry into World War II in As Dodger Jackie Robinson integrated Hospital staff members December, 1941 once again brought staf f major league baseball and postwar pros- serve in Armed Forces. shortages as doctors, nurses and other perity lifted the incomes and aspirations Belt Parkway opens.

28 29 1942 of many borough residents, W orld War II moved to Los Angeles. More critically , Buckley Pavilion is and Korean War veterans and their wives many of the factories, refineries and pro - completed. created their own “baby boom” at cessing plants that had employed Methodist Hospital. The Mater nity Brooklyn workers for decades began to Building had become one of the Hospital’s desert the borough, sparking a protracted There was no playing 1947 hooky from school, busiest. In 1952 the Division of and sometimes painful reorientation of even for hospitalized Jackie Robinson starts Obstetrics and Gynecology repor ted that Brooklyn’s economy from manufacturing children, beginning in his first season with the its staff had delivered 54,300 babies since to service industries. While Park Slope, the 1940s. Today, the Dodgers, integrating NYC Department of Major League Baseball. the Maternity Pavilion had opened in once celebrated for its elegant Gold Education operates 1924. New doors were opening at the Coast, remained home to a vital commu- P.S. 403 on the Pediatrics Unit. Hospital; in the same era, the Division nity, its residents coped with the loss of 1950 appointed its first female physician, blue-collar jobs, the abandonment of 44% of Hospital patients Dr. Isabelle Seismann. Methodist was buildings by tenants and landlords and have at least part of now known far and wide as “The Baby other urban stre sses. In response, the their treatment covered Hospital.” Hospital’s Social Ser vice Department by Blue Cross. Brooklyn population The late 1950s, however , also became an increasingly active agent in The social identity of the borough length of stay was down to 10 days by peaks at 2,738,175. brought less happy tidings. The Brooklyn the local community . As early as 1911, was also changing in the postwar era. As 1953, the cost of a day’ s care was now Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel Daily Eagle, an institution for over a cen- Methodist had appointed Miss Lucy C. the children and grandchildren of averaging $21.77. Yet the Hospital forged is completed. tury, closed its doors in 1955, and two Catlin, R.N., as its “social ser vice nurse European immigrants moved to ahead to adapt and expand its services for years later the borough’s beloved Dodgers and supply secretar y.” Miss Catlin paid Manhattan or the suburbs, their places a changing Brooklyn. (In 1957, the 45 visits to the homes of local families in were filled by newcomers, mostly African Hospital noted that 86 percent of its need during her first year , arranging for Americans from the South, emigrants patients lived in Brooklyn, with almost visits to the Hospital’s outpatient depart- from the British W est Indies, and Puer to 40 percent being residents of Park Slope.) ment, coordinating needed ser vices with Ricans, who joined already-established In 1958 a bequest from Mrs. Stanley H. other relief agencies, and even attending black and Latino communities in Miner enabled the Hospital to replace the to the religious needs of some families. By Brooklyn. These new immigrants old Halls Administration Building with the 1940s and 1950s, the Hospital’s Social enriched the borough with their cultural the Miner Pavilion, which today ser ves Service Department was aiding patients contributions and their aspirations, but as a main entrance to the Hospital seeking improved housing, coordinating poverty, racism and discrimination also for patients undergoing ambulator y care for patients with psychiatric and accompanied their relocation to the procedures. OPPOSITE:Well-baby emotional problems, and obtaining the urban North. The Hospital’s doctors enjoyed a clinics continued into the services of a teacher through the New Methodist Hospital ser ved Brooklyn’s widespread reputation for their skills. postwar baby boom. York City Board of Education to instr uct people as these changes took place. Costs From its earliest years, the Hospital was children hospitalized for extended stays. continued to escalate. While the average known throughout Brooklyn and New

30 31 he Hospital initiated a effort was undertaken. Today, more than 1955 number of innovative 1,000 individuals – ranging in age from 16 Brooklyn Daily Eagle programs in the 1960s. to 90 – volunteer their time and expertise newspaper closes In 1962, for instance, at NYM through the numerous oppor tu- after 114 years. Brooklyn Dodgers win Methodist opened an nities offered by the Depar tment of World Series against the acute adult psychiatric Educational and V olunteer Resources. New York Yankees. Tin-patient unit, the first in any voluntar y During the next decade, the Auxiliar y hospital in Brooklyn. (The first inpatient was founded as a ser vice and fundraising geriatric psychiatric unit in Brooklyn was organization for the Hospital. Its most 1956 opened by NYM in 1983). A 1963 ar ticle significant source of funds is from the Brooklyn’s last trolleys by the Hospital’s Robert A. Wilson, M.D., Hospital gift shop, which is operated by cease running. 1962 and Raimondo Brevetti, M.D., with the group. Since its founding in 1978, the Hospital opens the first Thelma A. Wilson, R.N., laid the earliest Auxiliary has raised nearly $3 million acute adult psychiatric 1957 groundwork for hor mone replacement dollars, which has been used to suppor t inpatient unit in Brooklyn. Brooklyn Dodgers therapy during menopause. Hospital programs, equipment, renova- move to Los Angeles. York City for its highly effective surger y Meeting the spiritual needs of patients has been The following year the Bar tone tions and aesthetic additions. New York Aquarium opens department. Methodist’s doctors were a priority since the Hospital first admitted patients. School of Radiography was founded as a at Coney Island. Today, chaplains are available 24 hours a day, seven 1964 also discerning diagnosticians. As early as days a week through the Department of Pastoral Care. two-year training program. Today it offers Bartone School of 1896 for example, they concluded that training in diagnostic radiography , com- Radiography established. 1958 one of the inpatients, a 30-year- old The spiritual needs of patients puterized tomography and magnetic reso- Verrazano Narrows Bridge between Brooklyn Miner Pavilion replaces Scottish emigrant who worked in a continued to be addressed with the estab- nance imagery. Another of the Hospital’ s and Staten Island is Halls Administration Brooklyn ceramics factory, suffered from lishment in 1960 of the Depar tment of initiatives in this era, the School of completed. Building. the neurological condition known as Pastoral Care’s Clinical Pastoral Education Medical Technology, trains college seniors Tourette’s Syndrome, this in an era before Program. This tradition continues today to work as medical laborator y technolo- the syndrome was widely recognized. and chaplains of many faiths are available gists. These educational endeavors led to 1960 Skill and dedication continued to around the clock to respond to patients’ others: The School of Radiation Therapy Clinical Pastoral characterize Methodist’s medical staff in spiritual needs and, if requested, connect Technology, which trains technologists in Education Program Students in the Bartone and Pastors Clinic the second half of the 20th centur y. By them to their faith traditions. The Pastors radiation technology (1989), the Nurse 1963, the Hospital was the workplace of Clinic, also started in 1960 (later extend- Leader Program, to train nurse techni- School of Radiography, inaugurated. c.1967. The school has Hospital treats Park Slope 141 full-time physicians and surgeons, a ed to include pastors’ spouses as well), cians (1992); and the NYM Paramedic graduated more than plane crash survivor consulting staff of 36 and a cour tesy staff offers clergy a four -day retreat, during Program (2001). 450 students since it was established. Stephen Baltz of 36, over 400 full-time nurses, 170 which they receive complimentar y Volunteerism was a par t of the (December 16-17). student nurses, 52 inter ns and residents, medical screenings and lear n about the Hospital from its inception, but it wasn’ t 138 volunteers, and 885 other workers. Hospital’s traditions and mission. until the 1960s that a for mally organized

32 33 A Day of Tragedy

atastrophe came to Park Slope a little before injuries were too severe. At 1 p.m. the following day , 11 a.m. on Friday, December 16, 1960. That Stephen Baltz passed away in his sleep at Methodist C morning, a United Airlines DC-8 jet en route Hospital, with his mother and father nearby. from Chicago to Idlewild (today’s JFK) Airport collided As a token of appreciation for all that the Hospital with a TWA Super Constellation propeller plane over had done, Stephen’s father presented the Hospital with the New York harbor. The wreckage of the jet plunged to still-blackened coins from his son’s pocket, as the start of a earth at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Sterling fund for some project to help other children. Gifts flooded Place, killing five pedestrians as well as a man inside in from all over the country as well as overseas, as gestures a church, and setting fire to over a dozen buildings. of concern and tribute to Stephen Baltz’s brave fight. Out A total of 128 passengers and flight crew perished on of this fund, an intensive care unit was established in board the two planes. the Pediatrics Department so that other children might As firemen, police, and emergency workers r ushed to be helped. To this day, the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit the scene, they realized that one victim had miraculously serves the Hospital’s community. The coins from Stephen’s been thrown clear of the wreckage onto a snow bank. pocket remain a cherished and honored heirloom, and a Eleven-year-old Stephen Baltz had been traveling alone reminder of Methodist’s role in doing its all to tr y to save from Chicago to spend Christmas with relatives in the one courageous survivor of a terrible day. Yonkers. Stephen proved to be the only sur vivor of the collision. Park Slope resident Dorothy M. Fletcher Stephen Baltz, 11, the sole comforted Stephen as she and two policemen lifted him survivor of the plane crash, into a car. “We are taking you to Methodist Hospital,” was found alive on a snow she told the boy. “That’s good,” he was able to reply, bank. He succumbed to his injuries the next day. “because I am a Methodist.” Stephen was rushed to Methodist, intermittently conscious and concerned that his mother, who was waiting at the airport to meet him, would be wor ried. For the next twenty-four hours, Methodist’s surgeons, staff, and nurses worked non-stop to save his life. Sheila Car olan, the Hospital’s chief emergency service nurse, spent all of

Friday night with Stephen, noting later that he was “bright FAR RIGHT: The wreckage and sunny and had a good sense of humor .” People all over of the United Air Lines the country prayed for him, and the Hospital received DC-8 on Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place, just hundreds of telegrams and phone calls expressing hope blocks from the Hospital for the boy’s recovery. But his internal burns and other in Park Slope.

34 35 In an era of frequent hospital consol- Methodist Hospital in the world estab- idations and closings, a signal event lished May 27, 1881 in the City of occurred in 1970 when, after two years of Brooklyn, NY, on this site.” close cooperation, the Carlton C. Peck Memorial Hospital in Crown Heights 1965 merged with Methodist Hospital. Revised federal Methodist remained the “Baby A New Era immigration law paves Hospital,” with 3,079 deliveries in 1963. As New York City weathered a fiscal cri- way for new waves of Significantly, the humanitarian impera- sis and a widespread reputation for urban emigrants to arrive from tive that prompted Buckley and Seney to decay in the 1970s, Brooklyn was experi- Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, Africa found the Hospital over 80 years earlier encing the first stir rings of a rebir th that and Eastern Europe. lived on in the fact that one-third of these would blossom fully in the decades to births were “ward cases,” in which physi- come. After 1965, revised federal immi- cians gave their ser vices without com- gration laws drew fresh generations of 1966 pensation. The Obstetrics and newcomers to New Y ork City, many of Brooklyn Navy Yard Gynecology Division introduced fetal whom settled in Brooklyn, where they closes; later reopened as monitoring in 1970-71, and instituted reinvigorated old neighborhoods and industrial park as part of family-centered maternity services, with community businesses. Migrants brought Brooklyn’s economic revival. Brooklyn Heights options for “rooming in” and for fathers their languages, cuisines and traditions is designated as the city’s to hold their newborn babies. from Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, first historic district. The institution remained proud of its the Middle East, Africa, Easter n Europe identity as the “Mother Hospital of and the Soviet Union. In the same years, Methodism,” the ver y first of 78 United Brooklyn’s economy, like that of 1969 Methodist Church-affiliated hospitals in Manhattan, underwent a reorientation to West Indian/American the United States. In 1970, the Hospital the service and infor mation sectors. In Day Carnival moves to Brooklyn from was designated a National Historic Park Slope, young professionals recog- Manhattan, symbolizing Landmark of the United Methodist nized the charm and convenience of one the growth of Brooklyn’s Church. The plaque, displayed at the of Brooklyn’s most distinguished neigh - Afro-Caribbean Hospital, reads, in par t: “The First borhoods and began moving in, changing population. the commercial and residential character of the district. While urban problems Methodist was already known (including challenges to health, especially as “The Baby Hospital” when doctors and nurses delivered in poorer communities) did not disappear, this newborn in 1963. Brooklyn was on an upswing. “New

36 37 As a life-long resident of Park Slope , there have Harvey and been several occasions when I and my family have Carole Polis “been assisted by New York Methodist Hospital. What can a We have consistently received good care. But one Brooklynites” from diverse backgrounds 1970 particular memory of my childhood in the early My wife and I were married Carlton C. Peck Memorial came to know the Hospital as employees Hospital 1950s comes to mind. on July 11, 1976 — a week Hospital in Crown and as patients. My mother had been hospitalized for a few “after America’s Bicentennial Heights merges with In harmony with the borough’ s days but to a five-year-old, it seemed to be forever . celebration. We were sched- The Methodist Hospital. mean to a regained vitality, Methodist Hospital This was during a time when children were not uled to leave for a Ber muda honeymoon the next undertook a modernization program that Community? allowed to visit, so my father ar ranged for my day. Well, on our wedding night, Carole came renewed and enhanced the entire institu - mother to be at the window of her room in the down with terrible abdominal pains and a fever. tion. The old Nurses’ Residence building Buckley building. I remember standing on the Her doctor had her admitted to Methodist imme- was transformed into a new East Pavilion corner of Sixth Street and Seventh Avenue and diately, fearing appendicitis. It turned out to be some sort of infection, which was successfully to meet the need for more office space. waving to my mother at the window, several A Sweet Story floors above. I think of how happy it made me feel treated at Methodist. Of course our honeymoon The eight-story New Pavilion opened in In May 1892, a gentleman riding in to this day each time I walk along Sixth Street. was delayed about a month and I took an awful 1983 with a state-of-the-ar t operating Maryann Feeney, 1971 Prospect Park was thrown from his horse with her mother, Maryann McHugh Feeney ribbing from friends and family about what must room suite, recover y rooms, an obstetri- and brought to this hospital with a frac- above, and today. have transpired on the wedding night that forced The Hospital’s School cal suite, deliver y rooms and nurseries, tured skull. He was the confidential ” Carole into the Hospital! of Nursing closes after intensive care units, a blood bank and clerk in a large sugar fir m of Brooklyn. training 2,700 nurses I have vivid memories of New York Harvey Polis over 83 years. clinical laboratories. In 1997, the New The proprietor came and said, “We Methodist Hospital, or as we simply ” Pavilion was renamed the John E. cannot spare that man, and if you save called it, The Methodist. I grew up five his life you will never be sor ry.” It was a Carrington Pavilion to honor Dr . “ On May 12, 2006, our lives changed concerned. “Major surgery about to be blocks from here. My mother, during that critical case, and for some days Life and 1983 Carrington, a Methodist minister and population boom after the war, worked forever. That’s when my husband performed. Don’t know the doctors. Eight-story New Pavilion Death sat on opposite scales, rising and trustee who joined the board in 1968 and here for four years in the mater nity ward. Marvin was taken to New York No time for second opinions.” But then (now Carrington Pavilion) falling at every change of pulse and “ I met Leonard Lee, M.D., cardiotho- has served as its chair man since 1979. At home she was working on a population Methodist with chest and back pains. opened. Hospital opens respiration and temperature. At last The remaining years of the centur y wit- explosion of her own; four of my brothers The EKG done at our home by the racic surgeon. He talked me through first inpatient geriatric surgical skill and vigilant nursing won nessed the renovation of nearly every area were born here in The Methodist. It was paramedics was negative and we came the procedure, psychiatric unit in the victory, and the man lived. The fir m part of the small number of institutions to the Hospital just as a pr ecaution— calmly answering Brooklyn. in the five older buildings of the Hospital soon sent us a check for one thousand that made up the neighborhood: the hospital, but Manish Sharma, M.D., Emergency my many naïve Centenary of the Brooklyn complex. dollars in grateful recognition of the police station, the school, the church. Department physician, had an intuition questions. A few Bridge is celebrated. The 1980s, however , presented the services rendered. It was there forever and I hope will be her e that something was extremely wrong. minutes later as Hospital with problems as well as oppor- We are pleasantly reminded of forever, because what it did for the After four hours of continuous testing, I kissed my tunities. By the latter par t of the decade, this patient again by a donation to people growing up in that era, it is doing he was proved right: my husband had a husband goodbye, the Hospital faced financial strain from the ladies of a barrel of sugar by the for the people growing up in this era. life-threatening aortic aneurysm. I was confident he Jan and Marvin Lefkowitz gentleman himself. the large number of patients who were The doctors patiently explained was in the right hands. “It is sweet to be remembered.” Pete Hamill unable to pay for medical care. The AIDS everything, helping us through this My husband’s recovery is on track. crisis exacerbated poverty and the lack of REPRINTED FROM Pete Hamill today, and ” very anxious time. This was not easy; The entire staff was terrific. They adequate health insurance for many . The The Hospital Journal, May 1893 with his parents in 1936. I was continually crying. helped us realize how truly lucky we typical hospitalized patient was now By 6 a.m., my husband was being are to have a hospital like New York prepped for life-saving surgery. Always Methodist in our neighborhood. being one to want second opinions Jan Rehder Lefkowitz and knowledge of my doctors, I was 38 ”39 significantly sicker than had previously Hospital’s Department of Radiation 1990 been the case. The New Y ork State gov- Oncology, a regional center for such treat- Brooklyn remains the city’s ernment had instituted stringent regula- ment, founded a School of Radiation most populous borough tions and complex reimbursement poli- Therapy Technology and a stereotactic with 2,300,664; if it were cies for hospital costs. Methodist, along radiosurgery program. The Hospital also a separate city, it would be the fourth-largest in the with nearly ever y other hospital in the made a major commitment to new, mini- country; but 20% of its state, began moving into a deficit posi- mally invasive surger y techniques. The population lives below the tion. In 1988, the Hospital’ s president, first laparoscopic gall bladder removal federal poverty line. Don A. Rece, noted that “our elected offi- and first laparoscopic her nia repair per- cials have assumed that a hospital can formed in Brooklyn took place at New 1991 simply reduce costs when its financial York Methodist in 1991 and 1992, respec- First laparoscopic gall situation needs to be improved... that tively. The first deep brain stimulation bladder removal in assumption has proven to be both shor t- surgery (to control symptoms of Brooklyn performed at sighted and unwarranted.” Parkinson’s disease) in New Y ork City The Methodist Hospital. Rece, who had been the Hospital’ s was performed at NYM. Additionally, the first administrator not to be an ordained Hospital availed itself of new develop- Methodist minister, retired in 1990 after ments in diagnostic imaging technology 24 years of service to the Hospital. As his such as ultrasound, computerized tomog- successor, the Hospital’ s Board of raphy (CT) scanning, magnetic resonance Trustees chose Mark J. Mundy, who came imaging (MRI) and nuclear medicine. with many years of experience in health care administration. Although the early 1990s continued to be a period of instabil- nother pioneering pro- ity for health care providers, Methodist gram was the Nurse began, once again, to flourish. W orking Leader Program, insti- together on the assumption that hospitals tuted in 1992, which “exist to ser ve their communities,” the over a 12-week course, Methodist board and administration trains nurse techni- endeavored to anticipate the kinds of cians to per form duties that require less OPPOSITE: When the Hospital A introduced stereotactic facilities and programs that the Hospital’s training than that acquired by registered radiosurgery — known as community would need during the com- nurses, but that are nonetheless impor- “brain surgery without a ing years. tant to the patient’s welfare. The program knife” — to Brooklyn in the 1990s, it revolutionized The 1990s proved to be a busy and quickly became a model for institutions the treatment of some momentous decade for the Hospital. The throughout the country. brain tumors.

40 41 Recognizing the need to extend pri- alliance with The New Y ork Hospital, Prior to constr uction, the Hospital 1998 mary care services beyond the Park Slope now the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, solicited neighborhood input and a num- Four story Medical Office campus, and embodying the tradition of in 1993. The New Y ork Hospital ber of modifications (the inclusion of Pavilion and 500-car community care exemplified in the Care Network, now the New Y ork- observed bicycle spaces, the placement of underground garage open Hospital’s early years by its outpatient Presbyterian Healthcare System, was a pedestrian entrance on Seventh Avenue on Seventh Avenue, between Fifth and Sixth dispensary, the Hospital opened the New formed to ensure that people in the met- and others) suggested by members of the Streets. The building, York Methodist Hospital Family Health ropolitan area would continue to have community were incorporated into the 1992 which also houses a Hospital opens its first Center at 210 Flatbush A venue in 1992, access to high quality medical care in final design. Barnes & Noble superstore, satellite ambulatory care the first of several such ambulator y care spite of a rapidly evolving health care sys- New programs in place by the mid- reflects much community center, now called the centers. With almost 20 percent of tem and escalating costs. Membership in 1990s offered a wide ar ray of innovative input in design and function. New York Methodist Brooklyn’s families living below the fed - the System and affiliation with the W eill inpatient and outpatient services. Among Hospital Family Health eral poverty line in 1990, many of them Medical College of Cor nell University them were a cardiac catheterization unit, Center, on without adequate health care or insur- also enhanced graduate medical educa- a cardiopulmonary physiology laboratory, Flatbush Avenue. ance, the Family Health Centers have tion at Methodist, as residents in many of a chest pain emergency center , a chronic First laparoscopic brought vital medical ser vices into com- its ten training programs now benefited pain management center, a sleep disorders hernia repair in Brooklyn munities where they are most needed. from shared NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill performed at The 2000 The Centers offer adult, pediatric, and Cornell faculty members in several sub- NYM opens The Birthing Methodist Hospital. obstetric care, psychological and nutri- specialties. A new name accompanied Center, which includes Nurse Leader Program tional counseling, and special outreach membership in the System: in 1993 the 12 labor-delivery-recovery initiated. programs for the treatment of asthma, medical complex centered on Sixth Street rooms. Brooklyn’s population remains diabetes and nutritional problems. Today, and Seventh A venue officially became 1993 the largest among the city’s NYM has four Family Health Centers New York Methodist Hospital (NYM). boroughs, with 2,465,326 The Hospital joins spread across Brooklyn, as well as a lar ge Just a few years later , NYM inhabitants. About 30% of The New York New York City residents Hospital-Cornell Medical sponsored diagnostic and treatment cen- embarked on a major constr uction proj- live in Brooklyn. Center to form the New ter located in the Red Hook section. ect, replacing an unsightly parking lot on York Hospital Care Together with the Hospital’ s on-campus Seventh Avenue with a moder n medical Network (now the outpatient clinics, these satellite facilities pavilion, designed to blend with the TOP LEFT: More than 5,000 babies were born NewYork-Presbyterian serve thousands of Brooklyn residents. neighborhood’s 19th centur y architec- at NYM in 2005. Healthcare System). By the early 1990s, it was clear that ture. Completed in 1998, the NYM LEFT: Breastfeeding support market forces were driving health care Medical Office Pavilion features street 1994 at NYM includes prenatal providers into a new era, even without level retail establishments, four floors of and postnatal classes, The Methodist Hospital health care refor m legislation. The NYM faculty and private physician individual consultations of Brooklyn with certified lactation becomes New York Hospital’s trustees secured the institu - offices, rehabilitation facilities and a consultants and support Methodist Hospital. tion’s future when they enter ed into an multi-level underground parking garage. groups.

42 43 center, a reproductive endocrinology lab, ical services, including advanced laparo - a spine and arthritis center and a women’s scopic surgery, the latest version of deep Infectious diagnostic center. The year 2000 saw the brain stimulation (to treat Parkinson’ s Diseases opening of new obstetrics facilities that Disease) and IMR T, one of the most Treated at included a mother-baby unit (post partum advanced forms of radiation therapy Methodist floor), an expanded Neonatal Intensive against cancer tumors. Under the direc- 1902 Care Unit and a bir thing center with 12 tion of Stanley Sherbell, M.D., executive Typhoid fever labor-delivery-recovery rooms committed vice president for medical affairs, the Paratyphoid fever to a “family-centered bir thing experi- Hospital strengthened its medical resi- ence.” Along with a state-of-the-art fertil- dency programs and recr uited many Scarlet fever ity center, these new facilities upheld nationally recognized physicians. Malaria NYM’s proud r eputation as the “The One of the new centur y’s most note- Influenza Baby Hospital,” while extending worthy events for the Hospital was the Tuberculosis women’s health care through the latest opening in April 2004 of the 2005 technologies and therapies. In 2005, more New York Methodist-Cornell Heart Tuberculosis than 5,000 babies were born at NYM. Center which brought to Brooklyn a Blood-borne patient-centered, state-of-the-art cardiac illnesses (HIV, surgery center staffed with a top-rated Hepatitis B & C) surgical team from the W eill Cornell Meningitis Toward Medical Center. The new Center was Influenza developed after New Y ork State selected Multi-drug resistant the Future NYM to create a comprehensive hear t organisms: MSRA (Methicillin The first years of the 21st century brought surgery program for the borough of Resistant Staph further expansion at New York Methodist Brooklyn. It is only the third such center Aureus) and VRE (Vancomycin Hospital, under the leadership of the in Brooklyn and was approved by the State Resistant president and CEO Mark J. Mundy . By following a highly competitive process. Enterococcus) 2004, the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare After years of intensive planning, System had become one of the largest construction and the hiring of an excep- OPPOSITE: The New York comprehensive networks of healthcare tionally trained and talented staff, the Methodist-Cornell Heart providers in the countr y, serving one of Center opened with two cardiac surger y Center, opened in 2004, brought to Brooklyn a every five patients seen in the greater rooms, eight-bed cardiac intensive car e state-of-the-art cardiac New York metropolitan area. New Y ork unit, and patient and family waiting surgery center staffed with a top-rated surgical team Methodist Hospital continued to develop areas. A team of inter ventional cardiolo- from the Weill Cornell and offer a range of state-of-the-ar t med- gists plays an integral role in the cardiac Medical Center.

44 45 surgery program. These physicians spe- rom the seed money that George Seney gave cialize in advanced non-surgical proce- New York to James Monroe Buckley in 1881, New York dures, including balloon angioplasty and Methodist has grown into a medical center stent placement. The opening of the New Methodist Hospital with an annual budget exceeding $475 mil- York Methodist-Cornell Heart Center lion. The 70 beds it provided in the W est also served to strengthen NYM’s role as a has come a long Pavilion in 1887 have become more than 600 borough-wide medical institution. Fbeds (including bassinets). Its original medical faculty of In 2003, construction began on a new way in 125 years. 16, with a support staff of a handful more, has turned into 2003 building on the Hospital’ s Park Slope a total staff of nearly 3,000 fulltime or equivalent Construction begins on new Infill Building. campus, to be completed in 2006, allow- employees plus more than 1,000 attending physicians. ing for the expansion of the Cardiology From a total of six patients in 1887, NYM today treats Division, the Emergency Depar tment, more than 30,000 inpatients each year , and records near- 2004 the Mother/Baby Unit, the Neonatal ly 100,000 outpatient clinic visits, approximately 60,000 New York Methodist- Intensive Care Unit and the Pediatrics visits to its Family Health Centers and about 65,000 Cornell Heart Center opens. Unit, along with more than 100 new pri- Emergency Department visits. In the 1880s, an inpatient vate inpatient rooms. Nicknamed the would spend an average of almost 22 days in one of the 2006 “Infill” building, the new constr uction Hospital’s beds; today, most spend less than a week. NYM celebrates its literally filled in the space in-between and For all its growth, NYM continues true to its original 125th anniversary. behind the Hospital’s existing buildings. vision of ser ving the health needs of the people of Although the Hospital has Other construction projects were Brooklyn. As in the 1880s, the Hospital ser ves native been in the same location begun in 2005, including a new façade for Brooklynites as well as people from all over the world for its entire existence, all the Kirkwood Pavilion and new entrances who have come to Brooklyn seeking a better life. of its original buildings for the ambulator y care clinics and the Growing up with Brooklyn, the Hospital has changed have now been replaced. Emergency Department. with the times to meet the constantly evolving needs and While NYM has long been Park’s Slope’s neighborhood challenges of a city and a borough that have never stood Hospital, it now functions still. New Y ork Methodist Hospital faces a busy and as a major regional medical dynamic future of dedication to the health of Brooklyn’ s center for the entire people, a future consistent with its heritage of 125 years borough of Brooklyn. in their ser vice. It is a fitting legacy for an institution founded to be “a general Hospital and open to the sick of TOP RIGHT: The new atrium lobby in the all lands and colors and creeds” and one with a spirit “so Carrington Pavilion. liberal that the doors shall be thr own wide open to any

RIGHT: The new bright, human being that God Almighty per mits to live any- cheerful Pediatrics Unit. where on the face of his ear th.”

46 47 Produced by the Department of Public Affairs Lyn S. Hill, Vice President for Communication and External Affairs Editor: Susan LaRosa Designer: Melanie Roberts Historical Researcher & Writer: Steven H. Jaffe, Ph.D. Photographers: Vinnie Amesse, Doris Barnes, Hugh Crawford, David Grossman, Amelia Panico, Frank Ritter Printer: Andrews Connecticut

48 Produced by the Department of Public Affairs Lyn S. Hill, Vice President for Communication and External Affairs Editor: Susan LaRosa Designer: Melanie Roberts Historical Researcher & Writer: Steven H. Jaffe, Ph.D. Photographers: Vinnie Amesse, Doris Barnes, Hugh Crawford, David Grossman, Amelia Panico, Frank Ritter Printer: Andrews Connecticut

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