New YorkMethodistHospital

Sharing Your Past,Caring for Your Future506 Sixth Street

Brooklyn, New York11215718.780.3000www.nym.org

New York Methodist HospitalCelebrating 125 Years of Service

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Message to our CommunityIn observance of New York Methodist Hospital’s 125th anniversarythis year, we have created a new written histor y of the Hospital. No New Yorkers are prouder of their heritage than Brooklynites andwe hope that you will enjoy this retrospective view of an impor tantBrooklyn 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 ofour new patient care pavilion. The new building houses a significantlyexpanded Emergency Department, a new Pediatrics Unit, our NuclearMedicine Division and several new inpatient floors with a large number of private patient rooms. The new space will allow us toenhance our cardiology program, add beds to our mater nity serviceand neonatal intensive care unit and expand ser vices in several otherclinical areas. With great excitement, we look ahead to a future asBrooklyn’s premier hospital.

Completion of such a substantial project during this banner year is a happy coincidence that highlights our enduring commitment to our mission: to provide excellent and compassionate care to thepeople 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 YorkMethodist will be able to invite Brooklynites to celebrate many moresignificant anniversaries as we move through the 21st century.

Mark J. MundyPresident and ChiefExecutive Officer

John E. CarringtonChairman of the Board

With great excitement, we look ahead to a future as Brooklyn’s premier hospital.

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High above the EastRiver, workmen andengineers inchedcloser to finishingthe “new eighthwonder of the

world,” the great bridge that would linkNew York City and Brooklyn, thenation’s first and third lar gest cities.Beneath the bridge, in the shipyards,foundries, refineries and warehouses ofGreenpoint, Williamsburg and Red Hook,hammers rose and fell and machiner yhummed, noisy testimony to the indus-try and commerce that made Brooklynthe fourth leading American manufactur-ing metropolis.

The city continued to grow by leapsand bounds, its population swollen by anongoing influx of European emigrantswho had more than doubled KingsCounty’s population in 20 years, to a total of nearly 600,000 by 1880. Asbusinessmen and builders plotted thedevelopment of new residential districtsto house this burgeoning population and planned new transit lines to movecommuters between home and work,Brooklynites enjoyed themselves listen-ing to concerts at their own Academy ofMusic, taking a dip in the ocean at ConeyIsland or cheering on their own BrooklynAtlantics at the Union Base Ball Groundsin Williamsburg.

It was also a busy year for theReverend James Monroe Buckley , editorof the influential Methodist Episcopalperiodical The Christian Advocate .Buckley, formerly the pastor of a congre -gation on Hanson Place, had set his hearton founding a new hospital. The clergy-man’s motivation for this ambitious taskwas a tragic accident of a sor t thatoccurred all too fr equently in the city’ scrowded streets. Y ears earlier, whenBuckley had been minister to a congrega-tion in Stamford, Connecticut, his churchorganist had been str uck by a r unawayteam of horses while visiting New Y orkCity. The wounded man had to waitan hour before an ambulancecould be found to take him toan “unhomelike institu-tion,” where his ar m wasamputated. Within hourshe died.

Buckley was wellaware that as Brooklyncontinued to gro w, suchaccidents, as well as theother health emergenciesbesetting an expanding popula-tion, required new and state-of-the-art hospital facilities. As a Methodist, healso felt that his denomination shouldplay a role in implementing and sustain-ing the medical and social ser vices thatan increasingly urban America needed.

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1881was a busyyear inBrooklyn.

OPPOSITE: The BrooklynBridge, c.1883, from theBrooklyn side, drawn justafter it opened. (Harper’sWeekly; May 26, 1883)

BELOW: The Hospital wasfounded as MethodistEpiscopal Hospital; this early seal was used from the institution’s inception.

In January 1881 he used the columns ofThe Christian Advocate to challenge hisfellow Methodists to establish such afacility, asking them, “Is it not time thatsomewhere we built a hospital?”

Buckley’s challenge was promptlyanswered by George Ingraham Seney , aprominent banker, art connoisseur,Methodist layman and Brooklyn resident.Seney pledged $100,000 and several landlots to begin construction of the hospitalpavilions, and to incorporate the institu-tion and appoint a board of tr ustees. OnMay 27, 1881, the Methodist EpiscopalHospital was born when Buckley and hisassociates obtained a char ter from the

State of New Y ork. On September 21st of that year , they laid the cor nerstone for the Hospital’ s main building.Construction commenced on the firstthree of what was supposed to be a grandtotal of nine hospital buildings.

Early YearsBuckley and Seney may have given bir thto a hospital, but its infancy proved frailand uncertain. Creating a hospital turnedout to be an expensive business. In 1884,with the shells of the main building andtwo side pavilions nearing completion,George Seney’s Metropolitan NationalBank failed when the value of its invest-ments in unreliable railroad securitiesplummeted. While Seney’s contributionsto the Hospital by this time totaled$410,000, the beneficence of the institu-tion’s principal philanthropist now cameto an abrupt halt as did work on the threehospital buildings. In order to give theirproject a fighting chance for sur vival, theHospital’s board of managers appointedthe Reverend George P. Mains as financialagent. By soliciting contributions fromMethodists all over the countr y, Mainswas able to raise the $100,000 that permit-ted builders to complete one facility , the70-bed West Pavilion. On December 19,1887, the Methodist Episcopal H ospital

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The Reverend James Monroe Buckley faced a dauntingtask on the day he entered George Ingraham Seney’ soffice at the Metropolitan National Bank in Manhattan to

ask for a donation to help educate a fatherless boy . Businesslike tothe point of brusqueness, Seney was the very model of a successfulGilded Age banker for whom time was money. “Can you possibly giveme two minutes?” the minister asked the banker . As Buckley later recalled,

He took out his watch and looked at me like a caged lion, and said: “I will give you threeminutes,” and then looked me in the face.

I said “Need six men, twenty-five dollars a piece a year , for six years; have got all but one;Oliver Hoyt is one, William Hoyt another.”

He said, “Put me down.”That first encounter opened the door for the founding of Methodist Hospital. After Buckley

called for such a hospital in Januar y 1881, Seney offered him donations that eventually totaled$410,000, bestowing his initial gift with the words, “Go build your hospital.” So single handedlydid the banker provide the seed money for the new institution that in its early years many knewit simply as “The Seney Hospital.”

For the Reverend Buckley, matters of health had pressing personal as well as public signifi-cance. Tuberculosis had taken the lives of his father and two of his grandparents, and Buckleyhimself struggled with the disease throughout his life. Like many Protestant clerics of his day , hesupported the temperance movement to prohibit alcohol consumption, and opposed theater-goingas morally unhealthy. George Seney was a more worldly man, an ambitious businessman whoworked himself up from a starting position as teller to become a leading banker of his day , a generous philanthropist to Wesleyan and Emory Universities, and a devotee of European andAmerican painting whose acquisitions today grace the collections of the Metr opolitan Museumof Art and other museums. In funding the Hospital, Seney sought to honor the memor y of hisfather, a Methodist minister, and he agreed with Buckley that the Hospital should be placedunder the supervision of the Methodist Episcopal Church. But he also insisted that it be “aGENERAL HOSPITAL, open to Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic, Heathen and Infidel,on the same terms.”

The joint legacy to Brooklyn that Buckley and Seney together created in 1881 lives on inNew York Methodist Hospital. As Buckley later noted wr yly of their initial encounter, “if I hadtaken four minutes, I doubt if I would have a dollar for the boy or later for the hospital.”

FoundingFathers

Reverend JamesMonroe Buckley, left, and GeorgeIngraham Seney.

1881Methodist Episcopal

Hospital is chartered

(May 27); cornerstone

laid for main building

(September 21)

1883Brooklyn Bridge opens to

the public; a minor-league

baseball team, the Brooklyn

Baseball Association, is organ-

ized; later becomes the

Brooklyn Dodgers. Seventh

Avenue (Brooklyn) horsecar

line begins operation.

This badly faded, but much prized photograph wastaken on September 21, 1881, at the cer emony to laythe Hospital’s cornerstone, as Reverend James MonroeBuckley delivered an address.

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admitted its first patient, followed by fivemore before the end of the year.

In its first year of operation, theHospital’s medical faculty numbered 16:two attending surgeons (including LewisS. Pilcher, M.D., president of theHospital’s Medical Board), two attendingphysicians, four assistants, two consult-ing physicians, two consulting surgeons,one pathologist and a house staff of threeadditional doctors. The Hospital alsoattracted a small suppor t staff of“internes,” new doctors in need of post-graduate training, who among their otherduties were responsible for examiningand recommending admission of newpatients.

With the Main Building unfinisheddue to lack of funds, the W est Pavilionquickly proved to be cramped quarters forall the activities taking place there.Surgeons operated on patients in an attichallway on the W est Pavilion’s fourthfloor. As one doctor remember ed, “Thechimney piece served to hang our ir rigat-ing apparatus upon; the fireplace ser vedas a receptacle for the soiled clothes ham-per; and the walls were painted white inorder to get some approach to that purityand cleanliness so necessary for operatingroom work. Whenever a splint was need-ed, an attendant would dive through thetrap door into the dark gar ret of the WestPavilion and bring it forth.”

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1887Methodist Episcopal

Hospital admits

its first patient

(December 19).

Pratt Institute

is founded.

1888The Hospital

opens its

Training School

for Nurses.

In 1881, James Monroe Buckley invited his friend Lewis Stephen Pilcher , M.D., to

organize the medical and surgical departments of a new hospital to be erected in Park Slope.

The energetic 36-year-old surgeon jumped at the chance. After serving in the Civil War and obtaining his medical degree from the University of

Michigan, Pilcher opened a private surgical practice in Brooklyn. He viewed Buckley’ s invitation asan opportunity to create in Brooklyn a major hospital that would incorporate the latest innovationsin surgical technique and medical administration.

Pilcher undertook his assignment at a moment in histor y when American hospitals, abettedby revolutions in the use of anesthesia and antisepsis, were attaining unprecedented impor tanceas centers for surgical practice.

Fully grasping the opportunity before him, he embarked in 1884 on a three-month fact-finding tour of the hospitals of Ger many, England and Scotland in order to lay the groundworkfor Methodist as a state-of-the-art surgical and medical center. His meetings with European innovators such as Joseph Lister inspired Pilcher to envision the Park Slope hospital as an institution that would adhere to the most moder n scientific methods in the training, medicalpractice 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 nedin Europe. When the hospital opened in 1887, Pilcher brought his vision to fr uition by serving as president of its medical board and as attending surgeon, persisting in his work for 20 years and devoting himself to the goal of helping the institution overcome its early financial and spatial constraints.

During his years at Methodist (where two of his sons assisted him as inter ns and then assurgeons), Pilcher gained fame as one of the nation’ s leading surgeons and its preeminent surgicaljournalist. 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 foundedthe Annals of Surgery, the first journal in the English language devoted exclusively to sur gery,which became a crucial medium for the dissemination of surgical knowledge on both sides of theAtlantic. Pilcher served as its editor for half a centur y, retiring from the Annals at the age of 89.

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 intobeing. “During twenty-six of the years of my life which included the period of greatest and mostfruitful activity,” he observed in 1925, “I gave this institution the first place in my thoughts and energies.”

The Accomplished Dr. Pilcher

Lewis StephenPilcher, M.D., touredEuropean hospitalsto bring the latestinnovations in medical and surgicaltechniques to Park Slope.

LEFT: An engraving of the Hospital, c. 1887,showing the originalbuildings on Sixth Street.

Four years later , the HospitalSuperintendent’s office was located in thebasement, the matron was housed in amade-over elevator shaft and the kitchenand laundry “rumbled and smoked in thebasement and annoyed visitors, privatepatients, officers and the occupants of ourChildren’s Ward.” Still, the staff held highambitions for making the Hospital a center of medical care and education forBrooklyn and beyond. In 1888 theHospital opened its T raining School forNurses, which immediately proved to bea highly effective educational program aswell as a source of nursing support for thedoctors. The Children’s Ward, opened in1889, inaugurated Methodist’ s commit-ment to pediatric care for Brooklyn’ syoungest residents.

Crossroads for the CityIn the late 19th centur y, hospitals wer enot yet the complex medical centers serv-ing diverse populations that we recognizetoday. Traditionally, hospitals functionedas charitable institutions for the care of acity’s poorest inhabitants. Doctors treatedpatients, usually for free or for a nominalfee, in bar racks-like public wards thatafforded no privacy . This had been tr ue

when Brooklyn’s first hospital, KingsCounty Hospital, was opened as analmshouse infirmary in 1831, and itremained so when Buckley and Seney cre-ated Methodist Episcopal 50 years later . If the poorest and often least hopefulcases — sick prisoners, the mentally ill,“vagrants” and the homeless —ended up in city-r un publicfacilities like Kings County, pri-vate hospitals such asMethodist existed to ser ve thevast laboring population thatphilanthropists described as the“worthy poor.” Thus Methodistinitially served Brooklyn’s working classimmigrants and their American-bor nchildren. But the Hospital also linkedtheir world (if briefly) to that of a differentset of Brooklyn residents, the financiallycomfortable native-born men and womenwho administered the Hospital’ s affairs,provided its medical ser vices and raisedfunds to keep it going. While Buckley andSeney may have located their hospital inPark Slope because land happened to beavailable there, their choice also put theHospital strategically in a zone betweenthese two social worlds.

A mere two blocks to the east lay the exclusive and privileged world of the“Gold Coast,” the domain of wealthymerchants and professionals and theirfamilies whose townhouses faced Prospect

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LEFT: Doctors and nurses, c.1893, treated wounds,epilepsy, “hysteria,” typhoid fever, opium and gas poisoning, and even performed corrective surgery for a veteran whose legs were amputated in the Civil War.

1889The Children’s Ward

opens.

1891Montauk Club opens

in Park Slope.

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“the most perfect vehicle of its kind everconstructed in America,” could go for thalong Brooklyn’s wide avenues and nar-rower streets to bring back individualsstricken by sudden illness or injur y intheir homes, workplaces or in the streets.Eventually the Hospital would own atleast two of these horse-drawn vehicles soas to enable inter ns to travel to simulta-neous emergencies in different par ts ofBrooklyn.

In its earliest years the Hospitaldivided its ser vices between the “med-ical” and the “surgical,” with the latter

encompassing the vast majority of itspatient caseload. While some of this sur-gery was elective, much of it consisted ofemergency cases r ushed to the Hospitalby its ambulance. As the Hospital’ s firstannual report observed in 1888, “the greatstrain which our intense modern life putsupon both body and mind” jeopardizedthe well-being of Brooklynites in theforms of industrial machiner y, urbanovercrowding and traffic, and “the multi-plication of vices always associated with crowded populations,” includingalcoholism and addiction.

Park. From here and the adjoining neighborhoods of “brownstone Brooklyn,”Buckley and Seney recruited board mem-bers, doctors, volunteers and others inter-ested in suppor ting the Hospital. Helpcame from devout Methodists, such asthe middle-class ladies who for medFlorence Nightingale Societies in severalBrooklyn congregations to raise moneyfor the Hospital. Ministers passed aroundthe donation plate on Hospital Sundays,when they preached ser mons to raisefunds for what would eventually be calledthe “Mother Hospital of Methodism.”Aid also came from other affluentBrooklynites and New Yorkers, includingmembers of the Havemeyer , Hoyt andPratt families, who, regardless of theirreligious affiliation, viewed care of thesick and injured poor to be a responsibili-ty of the “better classes.”

Afew blocks to thesouthwest of theHospital could befound a more mixedarea of middle-classrow houses inter-

spersed with workers’ tenements, facto-ries and small businesses. The Hospitalserved members of this community , andalso catered to the crowded tenement dis-tricts stretching nor th and west across

Brooklyn, areas teeming with familieswho could never or only rarely afford carefrom physicians in private practice.Methodist’s central location, and thetransit networks that brought patients toand from its door , made it an ef fectiveinstitution for reaching Brooklyn resi -dents in medical jeopardy. Like the otherelectric trolley lines that increasinglycrisscrossed the city, the Seventh AvenueLine provided easy access to the Hospitalfrom throughout Kings County and, via the Brooklyn Bridge, for visitors fromManhattan. Just as critically , theHospital’s horse-drawn ambulance,manned by “inter nes” and described as

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1893Seventh Avenue

horsecar line switches

to electricity, runs as

streetcar line until 1951.

1895East Pavilion dispensary

is opened as an

outpatient clinic.

The Hospital’s horse-drawnambulance, described as“the most perfect vehicle of its kind ever constructedin America,” was originallystaffed by interns.

RIGHT: Elegant 19th century brownstones,originally the domain ofwealthy merchants andprofessionals who helped support the Hospital, still characterize the Park Slope streetscape in the 21st century.

Directions to the HospitalPersons coming to the Grand CentralStation should take the elevated railroad(Third Avenue) toBrooklyn Bridge, and,crossing the Bridge toBrooklyn, take SeventhAvenue electric car to the Hospital.

Persons coming byWeehawken shouldcross to Franklin Streetand thence to theBridge (five minuteswalk) by ChambersStreet horse car, thenproceed as above.

Persons coming by thePennsylvania or LehighValley Railroad can take the Annex ferry toBrooklyn, and then theSeventh Avenue car tothe Hospital.

FROM The MethodistEpiscopal Hospital AnnualReport, 1902

Early case repor ts bear this out.Patients during the Hospital’ s first yearincluded a 17-year-old boy str uck by alocomotive, a man in his 20s injured atsea by a falling mast, and a 55-year-oldman hit by a der rick chain. In 1899, a fairly typical year , the Hospital’ s ambu-lance made 1,376 calls, transpor ting 376individuals with wounds, 186 who hadsustained contusions, 120 with fracturesand 76 suffering from alcoholism.Workplace hazards brought patients tothe Hospital for both surgical and medicalcare. Injured constr uction workers werecarried in frequently as they built ParkSlope and adjoining districts. Doctorsnoted that workers in Brooklyn’ s freightyards, foundries and sugar refineries suf-fered frequently from various pulmonar yillnesses. As a community hospital,Methodist treated patients for a seeming-ly endless variety of ailments and afflic-tions, ranging from epilepsy , “hysteria,”typhoid fever, and opium and gas poison-ing, to providing corrective surgery fora veteran whose legs had been ampu-tated during the Civil W ar. It alsobecame the principal health centerfor the young single women, manyof them immigrants, who workedas live-in domestic ser vants, cooksand nannies for the moneyed familiesoccupying Park Slope’s new brownstonetownhouses.

In 1888, four pupils and four “probationers” becamethe first students of the new Methodist EpiscopalHospital’s Training School for Nurses. With hospi-

tals sprouting up to meet the needs of an industrial andurban America (4,500 were founded between 1885 and1915), Methodist’s board and administrators recognizedthat such a school would provided a vital trainingground not only locally but nationally as well.

The Training School instituted a three-year curriculum, conducted by the Hospital faculty and aSupervisor of Nurses, in which students lear ned “theoutlines of anatomy and physiology,” how to dresswounds, and how to apply “fomentations, poultices,cups and leeches.” They also lear ned the proper methods for disinfecting utensils, making beds, and for“preparing, cooking and serving delicacies to the sick.”The student nurses were required to attend frequent

lectures (eventually including two on gynecology delivered by Dr. Florence Leigh-Jones, one of the era’srare female physicians), study manuals and textbooks,and assist the doctors in the wards, operating room, and outpatient department. While the Hospital lodged andfed the students, it defrayed the program’s costs byemploying them as unpaid student nurses, it beingunderstood that such work constituted a key element in their education. The school proved a success. In1899, the Hospital could report that “the enthusiasm,intelligence, and excellent training of these nurses havebeen favorably acknowledged, and their services aremuch in demand elsewhere as well as in this city.”

In an era of rigid gender roles, nursing was one ofthe few professional fields open to middle-class women.Methodist presumed it would have an unmar riedfemale student body when it instructed new pupils to bring with them “two dresses and one wrapper ofgingham or some other wash material, made plainly; six large white aprons... plain underclothing; all markedwith the owner’s name.” Applicants had to be betweenthe ages of 21 and 35, signifying that many wer e making a choice between marriage and a career.

Within a decade, word of the school had spreadwidely, largely through the Methodist Churchgrapevine. Students in 1899 came from as far afield as Canada, Colorado and “Dakota.” That same year , theHospital noted that of its 123 nursing graduates, 20 hadmarried (four of them to doctors), 65 still resided inBrooklyn, while others were scattered from Los Angeles

A Legacy of Skill and Compassion

The Methodist Episcopal Hospital’s Training School for Nurses, class of 1920. Some 2,700 nurses graduated from the school during its 83-year existence.

and Chicago to Ireland, Denmark, and a U.S. mili-tary post in the Philippines. Many remained activenurses, serving hospitals nationwide. Helen B.Riley, Class of 1892, who later mar ried Dr. JohnSchapps, presumably assisted him with thepatients he served in the town of Pony, Montana.The most famous graduate was Doris Schwar tz,R.N., author of Give Us To Go Blithely, My FiftyYears of Nursing, and a pioneer in developing training programs for advanced nurse practitioners,especially in geriatrics and family medicine.

The Hospital came of age in the period whenmodern social work was born, and in 1911 theHospital appointed Miss Lucy C. Catlin, R.N., as its first social service nurse. Miss Catlin admittedpatients to the Hospital’s outpatient department,coordinated the Hospital’s work with other reliefagencies, and became Methodist’s official “homevisitor,” bringing services directly to patients in their homes. Caring for the social as well as medical needs of patients remained a key elementof nursing (and nursing education) at Methodistover the decades to come, and lives on in theHospital’s range of outreach services.

In 1971, due to the increased demand fornurses to have both B.A. and R.N. degr ees, theHospital closed its School of Nursing. Over thecourse of 83 years, 2,700 nurses had obtained their training and received their first professionalhospital experience here. It was a legacy that leftits mark, not only in Brooklyn but around theworld, wherever Methodist-trained nurses servedpatients with skill and compassion.

1897 Steeplechase Park opens,

inaugurating Coney

Island’s heyday as an

amusement center.

Brooklyn Public Library

is organized, and the

Brooklyn Institute of

Arts and Sciences (later

renamed the Brooklyn

Museum of Art) opens.

1898The Hospital cares for

Spanish-American War

veterans.

Greater New York

City comes into being

(January 1), absorbing

the city of Brooklyn as

one of its five boroughs.

14 15

In vowing to ser ve the “wor thy anddeserving poor,” Methodist opened itsdoors to the constituents of Brooklyn’ sethnic mosaic. In 1898, for example, outof a total of 1,381 patients, 951 had beenborn in the United States, although thisnumber probably included many childrenof immigrants. The other 430 had beenborn in a total of 18 foreign countries,with Ireland, Germany, England, Swedenand Italy the leading contributors, repre -senting the influx of nor thern and,increasingly, southern Europeans intoBrooklyn. While the majority of patientsadhered to one or another of theProtestant denominations (269 wereMethodists), the single largest religiousgroup was the 362 Roman Catholicpatients, a natural development in a peri-od when so many European Catholic emi-grants found a home in Brooklyn. Thir ty-one Jews and five who listed their religionas “none” were also present. In an erawhen racial exclusion and segregation inBrooklyn and New Y ork City for cedblacks into separate restaurants, theatergalleries, schools and spor ts teams, theHospital had from the star t made a com-mitment to be “open to the sick of alllands and colors.” Methodist confir medthis commitment when in 1888 it admit-ted as one of its earliest patients a 16-year-old “colored girl” in need of skingrafts for burns, and its early patient rolls

also included a number of Brooklyn resi-dents born in the West Indies, most likelymembers of the city’ s Afro-Caribbeanpopulation.

Financial ChallengesKeeping the Hospital financially healthyremained an uphill battle. WhileMethodist possessed the largest endow-ment fund of any Brooklyn hospital in1890, its costs skyrocketed during thenext decade, making it impossible to fin-ish construction on its planned complexof buildings. One cause was the financialdepression that thre w millions ofAmericans out of work in the mid-1890sand hit Brooklyn as hard as any othercommunity. As increasing numbers ofmen, women and children lost their jobs,the demand for free medical care shot up.In order to ser ve the swelling populationof those desperate for treatment, theHospital reduced the amount of time agiven patient could occupy a bed; an aver-age stay in the Hospital declined fromalmost 22 days in the early years to 18days in 1899. To relieve the strain by pro-viding some medical ser vices on an out-patient basis, the Hospital in 1895 turnedthe first floor rooms of the East Pavilion

Three scenes from the Hospital dispensary, which providedfree outpatient care to out-of-work Brooklynites and theirfamilies. Opened in response to the financial depression inthe 1890s, the dispensary provided free treatment to some16,000 visitors a year. It was originally funded by donationsfrom former interns.

16 17

“VeryDesirableGifts” The question is frequently asked:What gifts aside frommoney are the mostacceptable to the hospital? Among the most practicalgifts are furnishingsfor beds.

outfit for one bedpillow case two sheetstwo blankets, all wool, whitecounterpanequilttwo hand towelstwo table napkinstwo undervests formen or womentwo night garmentsfor men or women

FROM The MethodistEpiscopal Hospital AnnualReport, 1908

in perpetuity. Closer to home, Dr .Breckenridge delivered stir ring fund-rais-ing sermons to Methodist congregationsthroughout New Y ork City and LongIsland, while the ladies of the BrooklynFlorence Nightingale Societies delivered$1,300 for the construction of an elevatorin the West Pavilion.

From its inception, Methodist alsosought to defray costs by adopting a poli-cy that would soon become the nor m forAmerican hospitals: Requesting or requir-ing that patients pay for at least some oftheir care. In 1888 the Hospitalannounced that it was “necessary to limitthe number of free patients, and to askthat those who can pay a par t or thewhole of the cost of their maintenanceshould do so.” The Hospital’ s trusteesnoted that a patient who could pay for abed in one of the Hospital’s “open wards”should be contributing $1.50 a day or $10weekly for his or her care. Meanwhile, asmall number of private rooms would beavailable at a cost of between $15 and $30weekly (this at a time when a skilledBrooklyn workman earned about $15 fora 60-hour week, and working womenrarely earned more than $7 weekly).

The Hospital’s goal was to attract amiddle-class clientele whose paymentswould offset the costs of providing free orreduced-fee service to their less fortunatefellow Brooklynites. In an era when

physicians and surgeons attended middle-class Americans in their homes or in pri-vate offices, most viewed hospitals asdens of contagion where the poor went todie. To change this perception, Methodist(and other hospitals) began to provide pri-vate rooms and special meals to payingpatients, and offered admitting and oper-ating privileges to Brooklyn doctors whobrought their private patients to theHospital. Methodist fur ther attracteddoctors and paying patients by providingbacteriological and surgical equipment inan era when the discoveries of Lister ,Koch, Pasteur and Roentgen were trans-forming medicine, thus providing physi-cians with access to new knowledge andtechnologies they might not be able to

18 19

into a dispensar y (an outpatient clinic),thus broadening the reach of an initialdispensary program established in 1889but at that time limited only to for merHospital patients. The new dispensar y,paid for out of donations by for merHospital interns, was soon providing freetreatment to some 16,000 yearly visitors.

Despite financial pressures, Hospitalboard members and administratorsremained committed to a vision ofexpanding the Hospital’ s services andfacilities, a vision that proved costly torealize even as it promised a healthierfuture for Brooklyn. In 1888, theHospital’s annual repor t had noted thatwhile Brooklyn contained a total of 920hospital beds (70 of them at Methodist,the rest at seven other hospitals), the Cityof Brooklyn needed one hospital bed forevery 500 residents— a ratio that requireda city-wide total of 1,600 beds. TheHospital’s Superintendent, the ReverendDr. John Breckenridge, canvassed tireless-ly to raise funds to per mit Methodist toboth survive and expand. In nationwidecampaigns, Breckenridge successfullysolicited funds from Methodist congrega-tions and Conferences as far afield asMaine, Ohio and W est Virginia. Heappealed to donors to endow hospitalbeds at Methodist “in perpetuity” for$5,000, or by the year at $365 annually .By 1889, some 13 beds had been endowed

ABOVE: The Barnier Room was the first private room to beendowed for $20,000.Elizabeth Barnier donated the money inhonor of her parents.

RIGHT: Raising money was key to the Hospital’scontinued success. This“Benefactors Wanted”notice appeared in manyearly annual reports andother publications.

The Hospital pharmacist, c. 1900. New scientificmethods available atMethodist attracted doctorsand their middle-classpatients. Fees collected from these patients helpedto subsidize the free caregiven to those who couldn’tafford it.

find or afford in private practice. TheHospital used this income to enable it tocontinue its “free work” for non-payingpatients. As the trustees declared in 1888,“no one will ever be refused admission onaccount of inability to pay unless theresources of the Hospital have beenexhausted.” Indeed, 20 years later , in1908, approximately two-thirds of theHospital’s services were still being provided to patients free of charge.

The 20th century arrivedtwo years early forBrooklyn. On January 1,1898, Greater New YorkCity officially came intobeing. Overnight, Brooklyn

lost its identity as an autonomous cityand became one of New Y ork City’s fiveboroughs. With more than one millionresidents, Brooklyn automatically helpedto transform Greater New Y ork into theworld’s second largest city (followingLondon). The new era would prove event-ful both for Brooklyn and for MethodistHospital. For example, for the first (butnot the last) time in its histor y, theHospital provided care for American ser-vicemen during and after one of the coun-try’s wars. In the after math of Americanvictory in Cuba in the Spanish-AmericanWar of 1898, the Hospital took in some 95

of the “boys in blue,” including 4 5who had been evacuated to CampWykoff on Long Island and thentransported by trolley line to ParkSlope. Although many were “burn-ing with fevers which seemedbeyond human control,” under thewatchful care of the Hospital’ sdoctors and nurses, only one of thesoldiers died. Meanwhile, Brooklyn’s cit-izens donated goods to make the veteranscomfortable. A Miss MacBennet, forexample, collected “under clothing, sta-tionery, postage stamps, ice cream anddelicacies” for distribution among therecuperating soldiers.

The new centur y also ushered in aperiod of renewed building and expansionfor the Hospital. A surgical pavilion wascompleted in 1900, the same year thatelectricity replaced gaslight in some ofthe Hospital’s facilities. In 1902 philan-thropist William A. Halls, Jr . offered toshare the cost of completing the long-awaited Main Building and West Pavilionif the Hospital raised funds for the purpose. As a result, in December 1906the Hospital was able to dedicate andopen the Halls Administrative Building.By then, the Hospital had opened anObstetrics Department, which immedi-ately became one of the busiest and mostpopular services. By 1907, the Hospital’ soriginal 70 beds had grown to 200.

1900The Hospital’s Surgical

Pavilion is completed.

Brooklyn’s population

reaches 1,166,582,

second only to

Manhattan’s among

the five boroughs.

1903The Williamsburg Bridge

and Coney Island’s

Luna Park open.

OPPOSITE: Doctors and nurses, c. 1919, hold newborns in the maternityward nursery. Within afew decades, Methodistwould become known as “The Baby Hospital,”because of its large number of births.

20 21

The staff and tr ustees in 1912 couldlook back proudly on 25 years of ser vicein which the Hospital had cared for a totalof 42,879 inpatients, provided nearly $1million in free care and over 100,000 out-patient dispensary visits. SuperintendentAbram S. Kavanagh noted in 1914 how avisitor who spent an hour in one of theHospital’s hallways had been “amazed”at the amount of activity he obser ved.The visitor “had seldom been in a placewhere so much was going on. The nurses

and orderlies on the floor; the attendingsarriving, the friends of patients coming,messenger boys with flowers...” W ithBrooklyn’s population sur ging towardtwo million, Methodist had ever y reasonto remain a center of activity.

This new era was not without itsgrowing pains. T ensions between theHospital’s house physicians and attendingphysicians (doctors in private practicewho brought paying patients into theHospital and enjoyed admitting and oper-

23

1906Halls Administrative

Building is completed.

1907 The Hospital now

holds 200 patient beds

(up from the original 70).

1908The IRT subway links

Brooklyn to Manhattan.

About two thirds of the

Hospital’s services are

still provided to patients

free of charge.

1909Manhattan Bridge opens,

third bridge to connect

Brooklyn and Manhattan.

These naval ward patientswere among the nearly1,200 soldiers who soughttreatment in 1918. TheHospital also cared for soldiers during the Spanish-American War and World War II.

OPPOSITE: Interns in 1918 — the first year the Hospital permitted female interns to join the program — posein the operating room. The number of womenphysicians at Methodist continued to grow, especiallyduring World War I andWorld War II, when militaryservice called many youngmen away.

ating privileges) proved to be one suchproblem. Competition between the twogroups for Hospital resources and privi-leges accounted for most of the friction.The Hospital implemented a partial reso-lution in 1915, when the administrationagreed to reorganize its surgical ser viceunder two head surgeons. This changealso reflected a new age in whichAmerican doctors were acquiring morecontrol over day-to-day hospital opera-tions. The Hospital’ s Medical Board ,which consisted of its senior , attending,and consulting physicians and surgeons,gained the right to nominate their ownrepresentatives to the Hospital’s Board ofTrustees, and the power to nominate orreject candidates for positions on theattending staff. In earlier years, the layBoard of Managers had appointed allphysicians.

As always, money matters lay at theheart of most of the Hospital’s challenges.While in 1888 the average cost of a day’ sstay for a patient had been $1.01, by 1917it had risen to $2.65. As costs climbed andNew York City’s private hospitals becameincreasingly reliant on funding from themunicipal government to under writecare, Methodist faced an official city for-mula that forbade payment for severalcategories of patient care and limited pub-lic subsidies to an amount half the actualcost of “charity” care. While private phi-lanthropists and Brooklyn businesses(including the Abraham & StrausDepartment Store and the Ansonia ClockCompany, whose employees presumablybenefited from the Hospital’ s proximity)continued to offer financial gifts, thestruggle of Methodist and other hospitalswith the city for increased funding fore -

22

shadowed a centur y’s worth of battlesover public reimbursement.

Patriotism overshadowed such mat-ters in 1917, when, following Americanentry into World War I, the Hospital putits West Pavilion at the federal gover n-ment’s disposal. As doctors and inter nsvolunteered or were drafted into militar yservice and the Hospital became a collec-tion point for clothing and suppliesdonated to the troops, Methodist faced astaff shortage. Fortunately, most of the1,173 convalescing U.S. Navy seamenwhom the Hospital ser ved in 1918 werenot in need of serious medical or surgicalcare, and thus did not over whelm thestaff’s ability to serve them.

On the other hand, the influenza epi-demic that struck Brooklyn that year, andwhich killed 20 million people world-wide, constituted a crisis. The Hospitalhad already faced one public health emer-gency when, in 1916, an outbreak of

infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis) sweptthe New York area. Ironically , however,the polio epidemic had actually reducedpatronage at the Hospital’s popular outpa-tient dispensary, as parents avoided con-gregating with their children in a settingwhere contagion might be rife. The fluepidemic, conversely, filled the Hospitalto the point of overflowing. As flu victimsoccupied beds and cots in the Hospital’ styphoid ward and even in makeshift areasof the Halls Building, 62 nurses also camedown with the illness. In light of the city-wide emergency, the Hospital ultimatelyturned over its wards to the city for thecare of flu-stricken public charity patients.

Years of Growthand ChallengeThe “roaring twenties” would witnessnew construction at the Hospital, includ-ing the erection of Ser vice Buildings Oneand Two in 1927-28 and the breaking ofground for a new Nurses’ Residence in1929. By mid-decade, Methodist’ s totalbed capacity had risen to 375. T o reachthe Hospital during emergencies,

24

1911 Lucy N. Catlin becomes

the Hospital’s first

“social service nurse,”

initiating the Hospital’s

social work department.

Brooklyn Botanic

Garden opens.

1912Methodist Episcopal

Hospital celebrates its

25th anniversary.

1913Ebbets Field opens as

home stadium for the

Brooklyn Dodgers.

1916Polio epidemic strikes

New York City.

1917-18Hospital puts its facilities

at federal disposal during

World War I, and treats

convalescing sailors; cares

for patients during 1918

influenza pandemic.

25

Young boy in the Hospital garden during the infantileparalysis (polio) outbreak of 1916. Ironically, patronageat the Hospital declined because parents kept their chil-dren away from settings where they might be exposed.

One of two motorized ambulances, c.1920, used to transpor t ill and injured Brooklynites to Methodist. Funds to purchase themodern ambulances were donated by doctors and members of the Florence Nightengale Societies.

could insert ten dimes. SupplementingMethodist’s regular Christmas fundraisingdrive, the Red Stocking Appeal quicklybecame a popular way for Brooklyn’ syoung to raise money and awareness fortheir community hospital. The Red Stockingicon may be the earliest fundraising symbolin the country, predating the Easter Sealand March of Dimes campaigns.

The onset of the Great Depression in1929 shattered the health as well as thedreams of countless New Yorkers. It alsoput tremendous pressure on the city’ smedical institutions to provide care whilehaving to slash expenses and cope withdiminished revenues. As the Hospital’ sprivate rooms for paying patients stoodempty, Brooklyn’s ill swamped its outpa-tient dispensary and its free ward s.Methodist also took in over flow patientsfrom beleaguered public hospitals, put -ting further pressure on its own strainedresources. By 1932, the trustees mandatedthat all staff members whose salariesexceeded $80 a month take a ten percentwage cut.

In 1935, some patients availed themselves of a new system of insuredhospital payments, officially titled GroupHospitalization in Greater New York butpopularly known as the “three-cents-a-dayplan.” Hospital Superintendent ChesterC. Marshall promoted the program as ananswer to the “demands for socialized

medicine” in an age of effor ts to securethe health of all New Y orkers in the faceof rising medical costs.

Despite the economic disaster of theDepression, the Hospital’s staff continuedto plan and innovate. In 1931, they affili-

Brooklyn residents could now r ely on aGeneral Motors ambulance (whose$2,276 price tag had been met by fundsdonated by the doctors and FlorenceNightingale Societies) that had replacedthe much-used old horse-drawn vehicles.Eventually the Hospital would possesstwo motorized ambulances in order tomake emergency calls. Perhaps mostnotable of the Hospital’ s new additionswas the Maternity Building, completed in1924 and known for several decades asthe West Pavilion until 1997 when it wasrenamed the W illiam C. KirkwoodPavilion. (Mr. Kirkwood, a Hospitaltrustee for more than 20 years, ser ving asvice chairman from 1982 until his death

in 1997, was one of the first babies bor nin the Maternity Building.) Obstetrics hadbecome one of the Hospital’ s “growth”fields. In the Mater nity Building’s firsteight months, 863 babies were bor n, andthe Hospital’s doctors made news in 1925when they delivered three sets of twinswithin 24 hours.

Rising costs continued to accompanyHospital growth. The average daily costof providing for a patient had shot up to$4.88 by 1925. It was in this period thatthe Hospital’s fundraisers hit upon theidea of the Red Stocking Appeal, in whichBrooklyn schoolchildren and churchgroups received cardboard folders shapedlike Christmas stockings in which they

26 27

Conceived in the early1920s, the Red StockingAppeal was a popular wayfor Methodist Church youth and Brooklyn schoolchildren to raise money for the Hospital. The RedStocking icon is one of thecountry’s first fundraisingsymbols, predating both theEaster Seal and March ofDime campaigns.

1924 West Pavilion, used for

Maternity Service opens

(now the Kirkwood

Pavilion); 863 babies born

there in first 8 months.

Congressional law curtails

mass emigration from

southern and eastern

Europe, affecting

Brooklyn’s population.

1927-28 Service Buildings

One and Two open.

1929Stock market crash

starts the Great

Depression. Brooklyn’s

tallest building, the

Williamsburgh Savings

Bank Tower, is completed.

FAR RIGHT: Well-baby clinics, like this one c. 1937, contributed to the goodhealth of Brooklyn’syoungest residents.

ated with Long Island College Hospital inorder to receive undergraduate medicalstudents for training. The Hospital’s long-cherished dream to augment the W estPavilion became a reality with the open-ing of the new Buckley Pavilion in 1942.

The Hospital’s denominational ori-entation remained a key feature of itsidentity. Board members and administra-tors still described patients, regardless oftheir religious beliefs, as “guests of thechurch.” The Hospital provided vitalservices to Methodist clergymen str ug-gling with the onslaught of theDepression. No case was more dramaticthan that of the Reverend Lloyd W .Karschner, who in 1933 at age 75 hitch-hiked from his home in Millville,Pennsylvania, to Brooklyn because heknew the doctors at the Hospital wouldperform the cataract surger y he neededbut could not afford. The Hospital’s affili-ation also resulted in a name change. In1939, as the three American branches ofMethodism prepared to come together asthe United Methodist Church, MethodistEpiscopal Hospital officially became theMethodist Hospital of Brooklyn. TheUMC and the Hospital have sincereplaced their corporate connection witha “traditional” relationship.

American entry into World War II inDecember, 1941 once again brought staf fshortages as doctors, nurses and other

employees joined thousands of their fel-low Brooklyn residents ser ving theircountry overseas or at home. But the warat least ended the bleak years of NewYork’s Depression. W ith defense jobsopening up in the Navy Yard and in hun-dreds of local businesses, moreBrooklynites now had money in theirpockets to pay for needed medical care.Additionally, increasing numbers of themsubscribed to one for m or another ofhealth insurance; by 1950, for example,44 percent of Methodist’s patients wouldhave at least some of their hospitalexpenses paid by Blue Cross. This cir-cumstance foreshadowed a new , postwarmedical economy, one in which hospitalsrelied increasingly on the insurance bene-fits of patients in addition to philanthro-py, public reimbursement and the privatepayments of well-to-do patients.

A Borough and a Hospitalin TransitionThe postwar years were a bit like a ride onthe Coney Island Cyclone for Brooklyn.As Dodger Jackie Robinson integratedmajor league baseball and postwar pros-perity lifted the incomes and aspirations

2928

1930 Brooklyn is the city’s most

populous borough, with

2,560,401 inhabitants.

1935 Group Hospitalization

in Greater New York

goes into effect, offering

insurance to New Yorkers;

forerunner of later

health plans.

1939 Methodist Episcopal

Hospital renamed

The Methodist Hospital

of Brooklyn.

1941United States enters

World War II

(December 8); many

Hospital staff members

serve in Armed Forces.

Belt Parkway opens.

OPPOSITE: Nurses tend toBrooklyn’s newest residentsin the Hospital nursery.Methodist’s reputation as “The Baby Hospital” continued to grow.

The social identity of the boroughwas also changing in the postwar era. Asthe children and grandchildren ofEuropean immigrants moved toManhattan or the suburbs, their placeswere filled by newcomers, mostly AfricanAmericans from the South, emigrantsfrom the British W est Indies, and Puer toRicans, who joined already-establishedblack and Latino communities inBrooklyn. These new immigrantsenriched the borough with their culturalcontributions and their aspirations, butpoverty, racism and discrimination alsoaccompanied their relocation to theurban North.

Methodist Hospital ser ved Brooklyn’speople as these changes took place. Costscontinued to escalate. While the average

length of stay was down to 10 days by1953, the cost of a day’ s care was nowaveraging $21.77. Yet the Hospital forgedahead to adapt and expand its services fora changing Brooklyn. (In 1957, theHospital noted that 86 percent of itspatients lived in Brooklyn, with almost40 percent being residents of Park Slope.)In 1958 a bequest from Mrs. Stanley H.Miner enabled the Hospital to replace theold Halls Administration Building withthe Miner Pavilion, which today ser ves as a main entrance to the Hospital for patients undergoing ambulator y procedures.

The Hospital’s doctors enjoyed awidespread reputation for their skills.From its earliest years, the Hospital wasknown throughout Brooklyn and New

31

of many borough residents, W orld War IIand Korean War veterans and their wivescreated their own “baby boom” atMethodist Hospital. The Mater nityBuilding had become one of the Hospital’sbusiest. In 1952 the Division ofObstetrics and Gynecology repor ted thatits staff had delivered 54,300 babies sincethe Maternity Pavilion had opened in1924. New doors were opening at theHospital; in the same era, the Divisionappointed its first female physician, Dr. Isabelle Seismann. Methodist wasnow known far and wide as “The BabyHospital.”

The late 1950s, however , alsobrought less happy tidings. The BrooklynDaily Eagle, an institution for over a cen-tury, closed its doors in 1955, and twoyears later the borough’s beloved Dodgers

moved to Los Angeles. More critically ,many of the factories, refineries and pro -cessing plants that had employedBrooklyn workers for decades began todesert the borough, sparking a protractedand sometimes painful reorientation ofBrooklyn’s economy from manufacturingto service industries. While Park Slope,once celebrated for its elegant GoldCoast, remained home to a vital commu-nity, its residents coped with the loss ofblue-collar jobs, the abandonment ofbuildings by tenants and landlords andother urban stre sses. In response, theHospital’s Social Ser vice Departmentbecame an increasingly active agent inthe local community . As early as 1911,Methodist had appointed Miss Lucy C.Catlin, R.N., as its “social ser vice nurseand supply secretar y.” Miss Catlin paid45 visits to the homes of local families inneed during her first year , arranging forvisits to the Hospital’s outpatient depart-ment, coordinating needed ser vices withother relief agencies, and even attendingto the religious needs of some families. Bythe 1940s and 1950s, the Hospital’s SocialService Department was aiding patientsseeking improved housing, coordinatingcare for patients with psychiatric andemotional problems, and obtaining theservices of a teacher through the NewYork City Board of Education to instr uctchildren hospitalized for extended stays.

There was no playing hooky from school, even for hospitalized children, beginning in the 1940s. Today, the NYC Department of Education operates P.S. 403 on the Pediatrics Unit.

OPPOSITE: Well-baby clinics continued into thepostwar baby boom.

1942Buckley Pavilion is

completed.

1947 Jackie Robinson starts

his first season with the

Dodgers, integrating

Major League Baseball.

195044% of Hospital patients

have at least part of

their treatment covered

by Blue Cross.

Brooklyn population

peaks at 2,738,175.

Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel

is completed.

30

The Hospital initiated anumber of innovativeprograms in the 1960s.In 1962, for instance,Methodist opened anacute adult psychiatric

in-patient unit, the first in any voluntar yhospital in Brooklyn. (The first inpatientgeriatric psychiatric unit in Brooklyn wasopened by NYM in 1983). A 1963 ar ticleby the Hospital’s Robert A. Wilson, M.D.,and Raimondo Brevetti, M.D., withThelma A. Wilson, R.N., laid the earliestgroundwork for hor mone replacementtherapy during menopause.

The following year the Bar toneSchool of Radiography was founded as atwo-year training program. Today it offerstraining in diagnostic radiography , com-puterized tomography and magnetic reso-nance imagery. Another of the Hospital’ sinitiatives in this era, the School ofMedical Technology, trains college seniorsto work as medical laborator y technolo-gists. These educational endeavors led toothers: The School of Radiation TherapyTechnology, which trains technologists inradiation technology (1989), the NurseLeader Program, to train nurse techni-cians (1992); and the NYM ParamedicProgram (2001).

Volunteerism was a par t of theHospital from its inception, but it wasn’ tuntil the 1960s that a for mally organized

effort was undertaken. Today, more than1,000 individuals – ranging in age from 16to 90 – volunteer their time and expertiseat NYM through the numerous oppor tu-nities offered by the Depar tment ofEducational and V olunteer Resources.During the next decade, the Auxiliar ywas founded as a ser vice and fundraisingorganization for the Hospital. Its mostsignificant source of funds is from theHospital gift shop, which is operated bythe group. Since its founding in 1978, theAuxiliary has raised nearly $3 milliondollars, which has been used to suppor tHospital programs, equipment, renova-tions and aesthetic additions. York City for its highly effective surger y

department. Methodist’s doctors werealso discerning diagnosticians. As early as1896 for example, they concluded thatone of the inpatients, a 30-year- oldScottish emigrant who worked in aBrooklyn ceramics factory, suffered fromthe neurological condition known asTourette’s Syndrome, this in an era beforethe syndrome was widely recognized.

Skill and dedication continued tocharacterize Methodist’s medical staff inthe second half of the 20th centur y. By1963, the Hospital was the workplace of141 full-time physicians and surgeons, aconsulting staff of 36 and a cour tesy staffof 36, over 400 full-time nurses, 170 student nurses, 52 inter ns and residents,138 volunteers, and 885 other workers.

The spiritual needs of patients continued to be addressed with the estab-lishment in 1960 of the Depar tment ofPastoral Care’s Clinical Pastoral EducationProgram. This tradition continues todayand chaplains of many faiths are availablearound the clock to respond to patients’spiritual needs and, if requested, connectthem to their faith traditions. The PastorsClinic, also started in 1960 (later extend-ed to include pastors’ spouses as well),offers clergy a four -day retreat, duringwhich they receive complimentar y medical screenings and lear n about theHospital’s traditions and mission.

32

1962 Hospital opens the first

acute adult psychiatric

inpatient unit in Brooklyn.

1964 Bartone School of

Radiography established.

Verrazano Narrows

Bridge between Brooklyn

and Staten Island is

completed.

1955 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

newspaper closes

after 114 years.

Brooklyn Dodgers win

World Series against the

New York Yankees.

1956 Brooklyn’s last trolleys

cease running.

1957 Brooklyn Dodgers

move to Los Angeles.

New York Aquarium opens

at Coney Island.

1958 Miner Pavilion replaces

Halls Administration

Building.

1960 Clinical Pastoral

Education Program

and Pastors Clinic

inaugurated.

Hospital treats Park Slope

plane crash survivor

Stephen Baltz

(December 16-17).

Meeting the spiritual needs of patients has been a priority since the Hospital first admitted patients.Today, chaplains are available 24 hours a day, sevendays a week through the Department of Pastoral Care.

33

Students in the BartoneSchool of Radiography, c.1967. The school hasgraduated more than 450 students since itwas established.

Catastrophe came to Park Slope a little before 11 a.m. on Friday, December 16, 1960. That morning, a United Airlines DC-8 jet en route

from Chicago to Idlewild (today’s JFK) Airport collidedwith a TWA Super Constellation propeller plane over New York harbor. The wreckage of the jet plunged to earth at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and SterlingPlace, killing five pedestrians as well as a man inside a church, and setting fire to over a dozen buildings. A total of 128 passengers and flight crew perished on board the two planes.

As firemen, police, and emergency workers r ushed tothe scene, they realized that one victim had miraculouslybeen thrown clear of the wreckage onto a snow bank.Eleven-year-old Stephen Baltz had been traveling alonefrom Chicago to spend Christmas with relatives inYonkers. Stephen proved to be the only sur vivor of the collision. Park Slope resident Dorothy M. Fletcher comforted Stephen as she and two policemen lifted himinto a car. “We are taking you to Methodist Hospital,” she told the boy. “That’s good,” he was able to reply,“because I am a Methodist.”

Stephen was rushed to Methodist, intermittently conscious and concerned that his mother, who was waitingat the airport to meet him, would be wor ried. For the next twenty-four hours, Methodist’s surgeons, staff, andnurses worked non-stop to save his life. Sheila Car olan, the Hospital’s chief emergency service nurse, spent all ofFriday night with Stephen, noting later that he was “brightand sunny and had a good sense of humor .” People all overthe country prayed for him, and the Hospital received hundreds of telegrams and phone calls expressing hope for the boy’s recovery. But his internal burns and other

injuries were too severe. At 1 p.m. the following day ,Stephen Baltz passed away in his sleep at MethodistHospital, with his mother and father nearby.

As a token of appreciation for all that the Hospital had done, Stephen’s father presented the Hospital with thestill-blackened coins from his son’s pocket, as the start of afund for some project to help other children. Gifts flooded in from all over the country as well as overseas, as gestures of concern and tribute to Stephen Baltz’s brave fight. Out of this fund, an intensive care unit was established in the Pediatrics Department so that other children might be helped. To this day, the Pediatric Intensive Care Unitserves the Hospital’s community. The coins from Stephen’spocket remain a cherished and honored heirloom, and areminder of Methodist’s role in doing its all to tr y to savethe one courageous survivor of a terrible day.

A Day of Tragedy

Stephen Baltz, 11, the solesurvivor of the plane crash,was found alive on a snowbank. He succumbed to hisinjuries the next day.

FAR RIGHT: The wreckage of the United Air Lines DC-8 on Seventh Avenueand Sterling Place, justblocks from the Hospital in Park Slope.

34 35

In an era of frequent hospital consol-idations and closings, a signal eventoccurred in 1970 when, after two years ofclose cooperation, the Carlton C. PeckMemorial Hospital in Crown Heightsmerged with Methodist Hospital.

Methodist remained the “BabyHospital,” with 3,079 deliveries in 1963.Significantly, the humanitarian impera-tive that prompted Buckley and Seney tofound the Hospital over 80 years earlierlived on in the fact that one-third of thesebirths were “ward cases,” in which physi-cians gave their ser vices without com-pensation. The Obstetrics andGynecology Division introduced fetalmonitoring in 1970-71, and institutedfamily-centered maternity services, withoptions for “rooming in” and for fathersto hold their newborn babies.

The institution remained proud of itsidentity as the “Mother Hospital ofMethodism,” the very first of 78 UnitedMethodist Church-affiliated hospitals inthe United States. In 1970, the Hospitalwas designated a National HistoricLandmark of the United MethodistChurch. The plaque, displayed at theHospital, reads, in par t: “The First

Methodist Hospital in the world estab-lished May 27, 1881 in the City ofBrooklyn, NY, on this site.”

A New EraAs New York City weathered a fiscal cri-sis and a widespread reputation for urbandecay in the 1970s, Brooklyn was experi-encing the first stir rings of a rebir th thatwould blossom fully in the decades tocome. After 1965, revised federal immi-gration laws drew fresh generations ofnewcomers to New Y ork City, many ofwhom settled in Brooklyn, where theyreinvigorated old neighborhoods andcommunity businesses. Migrants broughttheir languages, cuisines and traditionsfrom Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia,the Middle East, Africa, Easter n Europeand the Soviet Union. In the same years,Brooklyn’s economy, like that ofManhattan, underwent a reorientation tothe service and infor mation sectors. InPark Slope, young professionals recog-nized the charm and convenience of oneof Brooklyn’s most distinguished neigh -borhoods and began moving in, changingthe commercial and residential characterof the district. While urban problems(including challenges to health, especiallyin poorer communities) did not disappear,Brooklyn was on an upswing. “New

37

Methodist was already known as “The Baby Hospital” when doctors and nurses delivered this newborn in 1963.

36

1965 Revised federal

immigration law paves

way for new waves of

emigrants to arrive from

Latin America, the

Caribbean, Asia, Africa

and Eastern Europe.

1966 Brooklyn Navy Yard

closes; later reopened as

industrial park as part of

Brooklyn’s economic

revival. Brooklyn Heights

is designated as the city’s

first historic district.

1969West Indian/American

Day Carnival moves

to Brooklyn from

Manhattan, symbolizing

the growth of Brooklyn’s

Afro-Caribbean

population.

Brooklynites” from diverse backgroundscame to know the Hospital as employeesand as patients.

In harmony with the borough’ sregained vitality, Methodist Hospitalundertook a modernization program thatrenewed and enhanced the entire institu -tion. The old Nurses’ Residence buildingwas transformed into a new East Pavilionto meet the need for more office space.The eight-story New Pavilion opened in1983 with a state-of-the-ar t operatingroom suite, recover y rooms, an obstetri-cal suite, deliver y rooms and nurseries,intensive care units, a blood bank andclinical laboratories. In 1997, the NewPavilion was renamed the John E.Carrington Pavilion to honor Dr .Carrington, a Methodist minister andtrustee who joined the board in 1968 andhas served as its chair man since 1979.The remaining years of the centur y wit-nessed the renovation of nearly every areain the five older buildings of the Hospitalcomplex.

The 1980s, however , presented theHospital with problems as well as oppor-tunities. By the latter par t of the decade,the Hospital faced financial strain fromthe large number of patients who wereunable to pay for medical care. The AIDScrisis exacerbated poverty and the lack ofadequate health insurance for many . Thetypical hospitalized patient was now

1970 Carlton C. Peck Memorial

Hospital in Crown

Heights merges with

The Methodist Hospital.

1971 The Hospital’s School

of Nursing closes after

training 2,700 nurses

over 83 years.

1983 Eight-story New Pavilion

(now Carrington Pavilion)

opened. Hospital opens

first inpatient geriatric

psychiatric unit in

Brooklyn.

Centenary of the Brooklyn

Bridge is celebrated.

What can aHospital mean to aCommunity?

38

“

”

”

“

““

”

”

As a life-long resident of Park Slope , there havebeen several occasions when I and my family havebeen assisted by New York Methodist Hospital.We have consistently received good care. But oneparticular memory of my childhood in the early1950s comes to mind.

My mother had been hospitalized for a fewdays but to a five-year-old, it seemed to be forever .This was during a time when children were notallowed to visit, so my father ar ranged for mymother to be at the window of her room in theBuckley building. I remember standing on thecorner of Sixth Street and Seventh Avenue andwaving to my mother at the window, severalfloors above. I think of how happy it made me feelto this day each time I walk along Sixth Street.

Maryann McHugh Feeney

My wife and I were marriedon July 11, 1976 — a weekafter America’s Bicentennialcelebration. We were sched-uled to leave for a Bermuda honeymoon the nextday. Well, on our wedding night, Carole camedown with terrible abdominal pains and a fever.Her doctor had her admitted to Methodist imme-diately, fearing appendicitis. It turned out to besome sort of infection, which was successfullytreated at Methodist. Of course our honeymoonwas delayed about a month and I took an awfulribbing from friends and family about what musthave transpired on the wedding night that forcedCarole into the Hospital!

Harvey Polis

A Sweet StoryIn May 1892, a gentleman riding inProspect Park was thrown from his horseand brought to this hospital with a frac-tured skull. He was the confidentialclerk in a large sugar firm of Brooklyn.The proprietor came and said, “We cannot spare that man, and if you savehis life you will never be sor ry.” It was acritical case, and for some days Life andDeath sat on opposite scales, rising andfalling at every change of pulse and respiration and temperature. At last surgical skill and vigilant nursing wonthe victory, and the man lived. The fir msoon sent us a check for one thousanddollars in grateful recognition of services rendered.

We are pleasantly reminded of this patient again by a donation to the ladies of a barrel of sugar by the gentleman himself.

“It is sweet to be remembered.”

REPRINTED FROM

The Hospital Journal, May 1893

Maryann Feeney, with her mother, above, and today.

Pete Hamill today, andwith his parents in 1936.

Jan and Marvin Lefkowitz

Harvey andCarole Polis

I have vivid memories of New YorkMethodist Hospital, or as we simplycalled it, The Methodist. I grew up fiveblocks from here. My mother, during thatpopulation boom after the war, workedhere for four years in the mater nity ward.At home she was working on a populationexplosion of her own; four of my brotherswere born here in The Methodist. It waspart of the small number of institutionsthat made up the neighborhood: the hospital,the police station, the school, the church.It was there forever and I hope will be hereforever, because what it did for the people growing up in that era, it is doingfor the people growing up in this era.

Pete Hamill

39

On May 12, 2006, our lives changedforever. That’s when my husbandMarvin was taken to New YorkMethodist with chest and back pains.The EKG done at our home by theparamedics was negative and we cameto the Hospital just as a precaution—but Manish Sharma, M.D., EmergencyDepartment physician, had an intuitionthat something was extremely wrong.After four hours of continuous testing,he was proved right: my husband had alife-threatening aortic aneurysm.

The doctors patiently explainedeverything, helping us through this very anxious time. This was not easy; I was continually crying.

By 6 a.m., my husband was beingprepped for life-saving surgery. Alwaysbeing one to want second opinions and knowledge of my doctors, I was

concerned. “Major surgery about to beperformed. Don’t know the doctors. No time for second opinions.” But then I met Leonard Lee, M.D., cardiotho-racic surgeon. He talked me throughthe procedure, calmly answeringmy many naïvequestions. A fewminutes later as I kissed my husband goodbye, I was confident he was in the right hands.

My husband’s recovery is on track.The entire staff was terrific. Theyhelped us realize how truly lucky weare to have a hospital like New YorkMethodist in our neighborhood.

Jan Rehder Lefkowitz

significantly sicker than had previouslybeen the case. The New Y ork State gov-ernment had instituted stringent regula-tions and complex reimbursement poli-cies for hospital costs. Methodist, alongwith nearly ever y other hospital in thestate, began moving into a deficit posi-tion. In 1988, the Hospital’ s president,Don A. Rece, noted that “our elected offi-cials have assumed that a hospital cansimply reduce costs when its financialsituation needs to be improved... thatassumption has proven to be both shor t-sighted and unwarranted.”

Rece, who had been the Hospital’ sfirst administrator not to be an ordainedMethodist minister, retired in 1990 after24 years of service to the Hospital. As hissuccessor, the Hospital’ s Board ofTrustees chose Mark J. Mundy, who camewith many years of experience in healthcare administration. Although the early1990s continued to be a period of instabil-ity for health care providers, Methodistbegan, once again, to flourish. W orkingtogether on the assumption that hospitals“exist to ser ve their communities,” theMethodist board and administrationendeavored to anticipate the kinds offacilities and programs that the Hospital’scommunity would need during the com-ing years.

The 1990s proved to be a busy andmomentous decade for the Hospital. The

Hospital’s Department of RadiationOncology, a regional center for such treat-ment, founded a School of RadiationTherapy Technology and a stereotacticradiosurgery program. The Hospital alsomade a major commitment to new, mini-mally invasive surger y techniques. Thefirst laparoscopic gall bladder removaland first laparoscopic her nia repair per-formed in Brooklyn took place at NewYork Methodist in 1991 and 1992, respec-tively. The first deep brain stimulationsurgery (to control symptoms ofParkinson’s disease) in New Y ork Citywas performed at NYM. Additionally, theHospital availed itself of new develop-ments in diagnostic imaging technologysuch as ultrasound, computerized tomog-raphy (CT) scanning, magnetic resonanceimaging (MRI) and nuclear medicine.

Another pioneering pro-gram was the NurseLeader Program, insti-tuted in 1992, whichover a 12-week course,trains nurse techni-

cians to per form duties that require lesstraining than that acquired by registerednurses, but that are nonetheless impor-tant to the patient’s welfare. The programquickly became a model for institutionsthroughout the country.

1990Brooklyn remains the city’s

most populous borough

with 2,300,664; if it were

a separate city, it would be

the fourth-largest in the

country; but 20% of its

population lives below the

federal poverty line.

1991First laparoscopic gall

bladder removal in

Brooklyn performed at

The Methodist Hospital.

OPPOSITE: When the Hospitalintroduced stereotacticradiosurgery — known as“brain surgery without aknife” — to Brooklyn in the 1990s, it revolutionizedthe treatment of some brain tumors.

4140

Prior to constr uction, the Hospitalsolicited neighborhood input and a num-ber of modifications (the inclusion ofobserved bicycle spaces, the placement ofa pedestrian entrance on Seventh Avenueand others) suggested by members of thecommunity were incorporated into thefinal design.

New programs in place by the mid-1990s offered a wide ar ray of innovativeinpatient and outpatient services. Amongthem were a cardiac catheterization unit,a cardiopulmonary physiology laboratory,a chest pain emergency center , a chronicpain management center, a sleep disorders

Recognizing the need to extend pri-mary care services beyond the Park Slopecampus, and embodying the tradition ofcommunity care exemplified in theHospital’s early years by its outpatientdispensary, the Hospital opened the NewYork Methodist Hospital Family HealthCenter at 210 Flatbush A venue in 1992,the first of several such ambulator y carecenters. With almost 20 percent ofBrooklyn’s families living below the fed -eral poverty line in 1990, many of themwithout adequate health care or insur-ance, the Family Health Centers havebrought vital medical ser vices into com-munities where they are most needed.The Centers offer adult, pediatric, andobstetric care, psychological and nutri-tional counseling, and special outreachprograms for the treatment of asthma,diabetes and nutritional problems. Today,NYM has four Family Health Centersspread across Brooklyn, as well as a lar gesponsored diagnostic and treatment cen-ter located in the Red Hook section.Together with the Hospital’ s on-campusoutpatient clinics, these satellite facilitiesserve thousands of Brooklyn residents.

By the early 1990s, it was clear thatmarket forces were driving health careproviders into a new era, even withouthealth care refor m legislation. TheHospital’s trustees secured the institu -tion’s future when they enter ed into an

alliance with The New Y ork Hospital,now the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital,in 1993. The New Y ork Hospital Care Network, now the New Y ork-Presbyterian Healthcare System, wasformed to ensure that people in the met-ropolitan area would continue to haveaccess to high quality medical care inspite of a rapidly evolving health care sys-tem and escalating costs. Membership inthe System and affiliation with the W eillMedical College of Cor nell Universityalso enhanced graduate medical educa-tion at Methodist, as residents in many ofits ten training programs now benefitedfrom shared NewYork-Presbyterian/WeillCornell faculty members in several sub-specialties. A new name accompaniedmembership in the System: in 1993 themedical complex centered on Sixth Streetand Seventh A venue officially becameNew York Methodist Hospital (NYM).

Just a few years later , NYMembarked on a major constr uction proj-ect, replacing an unsightly parking lot onSeventh Avenue with a moder n medicalpavilion, designed to blend with theneighborhood’s 19th centur y architec-ture. Completed in 1998, the NYMMedical Office Pavilion features streetlevel retail establishments, four floors ofNYM faculty and private physicianoffices, rehabilitation facilities and amulti-level underground parking garage.

42

1992Hospital opens its first

satellite ambulatory care

center, now called the

New York Methodist

Hospital Family Health

Center, on

Flatbush Avenue.

First laparoscopic

hernia repair in Brooklyn

performed at The

Methodist Hospital.

Nurse Leader Program

initiated.

1993The Hospital joins

The New York

Hospital-Cornell Medical

Center to form the New

York Hospital Care

Network (now the

NewYork-Presbyterian

Healthcare System).

1994The Methodist Hospital

of Brooklyn

becomes New York

Methodist Hospital.

1998Four story Medical Office

Pavilion and 500-car

underground garage open

on Seventh Avenue,

between Fifth and Sixth

Streets. The building,

which also houses a

Barnes & Noble superstore,

reflects much community

input in design and function.

2000NYM opens The Birthing

Center, which includes

12 labor-delivery-recovery

rooms.

Brooklyn’s population remains

the largest among the city’s

boroughs, with 2,465,326

inhabitants. About 30% of

New York City residents

live in Brooklyn.

TOP LEFT: More than 5,000 babies were born at NYM in 2005.

LEFT: Breastfeeding supportat NYM includes prenataland postnatal classes, individual consultationswith certified lactation consultants and supportgroups.

43

center, a reproductive endocrinology lab,a spine and arthritis center and a women’sdiagnostic center. The year 2000 saw theopening of new obstetrics facilities thatincluded a mother-baby unit (post partumfloor), an expanded Neonatal IntensiveCare Unit and a bir thing center with 12labor-delivery-recovery rooms committedto a “family-centered bir thing experi-ence.” Along with a state-of-the-art fertil-ity center, these new facilities upheldNYM’s proud r eputation as the “TheBaby Hospital,” while extendingwomen’s health care through the latesttechnologies and therapies. In 2005, morethan 5,000 babies were born at NYM.

Toward the FutureThe first years of the 21st century broughtfurther expansion at New York MethodistHospital, under the leadership of the president and CEO Mark J. Mundy . By2004, the NewYork-Presbyterian HealthcareSystem had become one of the largestcomprehensive networks of healthcareproviders in the countr y, serving one ofevery five patients seen in the greaterNew York metropolitan area. New Y orkMethodist Hospital continued to developand offer a range of state-of-the-ar t med-

ical services, including advanced laparo -scopic surgery, the latest version of deepbrain stimulation (to treat Parkinson’ sDisease) and IMR T, one of the mostadvanced forms of radiation therapyagainst cancer tumors. Under the direc-tion of Stanley Sherbell, M.D., executivevice president for medical affairs, theHospital strengthened its medical resi-dency programs and recr uited manynationally recognized physicians.

One of the new centur y’s most note-worthy events for the Hospital was theopening in April 2004 of the New York Methodist-Cornell HeartCenter which brought to Brooklyn apatient-centered, state-of-the-art cardiacsurgery center staffed with a top-ratedsurgical team from the W eill CornellMedical Center. The new Center wasdeveloped after New Y ork State selectedNYM to create a comprehensive hear tsurgery program for the borough ofBrooklyn. It is only the third such center in Brooklyn and was approved by the Statefollowing a highly competitive process.

After years of intensive planning,construction and the hiring of an excep-tionally trained and talented staff, theCenter opened with two cardiac surger yrooms, eight-bed cardiac intensive car eunit, and patient and family waitingareas. A team of inter ventional cardiolo-gists plays an integral role in the cardiac

OPPOSITE: The New YorkMethodist-Cornell HeartCenter, opened in 2004,brought to Brooklyn astate-of-the-art cardiacsurgery center staffed witha top-rated surgical teamfrom the Weill CornellMedical Center.

45

InfectiousDiseasesTreated atMethodist

1902Typhoid fever

Paratyphoid fever

Scarlet fever

Malaria

Influenza

Tuberculosis

2005Tuberculosis

Blood-borne illnesses (HIV,Hepatitis B & C)

Meningitis

Influenza

Multi-drug resistantorganisms: MSRA (MethicillinResistant StaphAureus) and VRE(VancomycinResistantEnterococcus)

44

46

surgery program. These physicians spe-cialize in advanced non-surgical proce-dures, including balloon angioplasty andstent placement. The opening of the NewYork Methodist-Cornell Heart Centeralso served to strengthen NYM’s role as aborough-wide medical institution.

In 2003, construction began on a newbuilding on the Hospital’ s Park Slopecampus, to be completed in 2006, allow-ing for the expansion of the CardiologyDivision, the Emergency Depar tment,the Mother/Baby Unit, the NeonatalIntensive Care Unit and the PediatricsUnit, along with more than 100 new pri-vate inpatient rooms. Nicknamed the“Infill” building, the new constr uctionliterally filled in the space in-between andbehind the Hospital’s existing buildings.

Other construction projects werebegun in 2005, including a new façade forthe Kirkwood Pavilion and new entrancesfor the ambulator y care clinics and theEmergency Department.

From the seed money that George Seney gaveto James Monroe Buckley in 1881, New YorkMethodist has grown into a medical centerwith an annual budget exceeding $475 mil-lion. The 70 beds it provided in the W estPavilion in 1887 have become more than 600

beds (including bassinets). Its original medical faculty of16, with a support staff of a handful more, has turned intoa total staff of nearly 3,000 fulltime or equivalentemployees plus more than 1,000 attending physicians.From a total of six patients in 1887, NYM today treatsmore than 30,000 inpatients each year , and records near-ly 100,000 outpatient clinic visits, approximately 60,000visits to its Family Health Centers and about 65,000Emergency Department visits. In the 1880s, an inpatientwould spend an average of almost 22 days in one of theHospital’s beds; today, most spend less than a week.

For all its growth, NYM continues true to its originalvision of ser ving the health needs of the people ofBrooklyn. As in the 1880s, the Hospital ser ves nativeBrooklynites as well as people from all over the worldwho have come to Brooklyn seeking a better life.Growing up with Brooklyn, the Hospital has changedwith the times to meet the constantly evolving needs andchallenges of a city and a borough that have never stoodstill. New Y ork Methodist Hospital faces a busy anddynamic future of dedication to the health of Brooklyn’ speople, a future consistent with its heritage of 125 yearsin their ser vice. It is a fitting legacy for an institutionfounded to be “a general Hospital and open to the sick ofall lands and colors and creeds” and one with a spirit “soliberal that the doors shall be thr own wide open to anyhuman being that God Almighty per mits to live any-where on the face of his ear th.”

2003 Construction begins

on new Infill Building.

2004 New York Methodist-

Cornell Heart Center opens.

2006 NYM celebrates its

125th anniversary.

Although the Hospital has

been in the same location

for its entire existence, all

of its original buildings

have now been replaced.

While NYM has long been

Park’s Slope’s neighborhood

Hospital, it now functions

as a major regional medical

center for the entire

borough of Brooklyn.

New YorkMethodist Hospitalhas come a longway in 125 years.

TOP RIGHT: The new atrium lobby in theCarrington Pavilion.

RIGHT: The new bright,cheerful Pediatrics Unit.

47

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, AmeliaPanico, 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, AmeliaPanico, Frank Ritter

Printer: Andrews Connecticut