Monday, February 1, 2021 – A contemporary hospital to those on Blackwell’s Island

By admin

276th Edition

Monday,

February 1, 2021

STATEN ISLAND FARM COLONY
SEAVIEW HOSPITAL

THE BLACK ANGELS AT SEAVIEW HOSPITAL

IS NOW A NURSING HOME ON STATEN ISLAND.
SEAVIEW HAS A LONG HISTORY AS A FARM COLONY, HOSPITAL AND HISTORIC SITE

Sometime I think our island has had a vast history. The Staten Island Farm Colony and Seaview Hospital, also municipal institutions have a great place in medical and research history.  Long forgotten and abandoned many parts of  this campus have been  left to history,   Today, Seaview is a long term care home and rehabilitation facility.  Parts of the campus have new housing for seniors, while this vast campus in the middle of Staten Island is a treasury of the forgotten.

The New York City Farm Colony was a poorhouse on the New York City borough of Staten Island, one of the city’s five boroughs. It was located across Brielle Avenue from Seaview Hospital, on the edge of the Staten Island Greenbelt.

Part of the town of Castleton from the 1680s onward, the land was taken over by the government of Richmond County in 1829 and the Richmond County Poor Farm was established thereon. When Staten Island became a borough of New York City in 1898, the city assumed responsibility for the property and redesignated it the New York City Farm Colony, although it was sometimes also referred to as the Staten Island Farm Colony. In 1915, its administration was merged with that of Seaview Hospital, which had been set up with the expressed purpose of treating tuberculosis (it is now a city-run nursing home, under the new name of Sea View Farms).[1]

Jurisdiction over the site was transferred in 1924 to the city’s Homes for Dependents agency, which lifted the requirement that all residents of the colony had to work — with most of the work involving the cultivation of many varieties of fruits and vegetables, and at various times even grains such as wheat and corn; these crops fed not only the colony’s residents but met the needs of other city institutions as well.[1]

The abandoned tuberculosis hospital that is styled architecturally similar to Triboro in Queens and Riverside on North Brother Island. All were built in the 1930’s.

On a remote hilltop in Staten Island, New York City is preparing for battle in the fight against one of the nation’s most deadly diseases…again.

A hundred years ago at the height of the tuberculosis epidemic, New York City’s planners and public health establishment mobilized to develop what the New York Times called “…the largest and finest hospital ever built” for tuberculosis.  Operating in the absence of any known cure for the disease, the Sea View Tuberculosis Hospital’s medical facilities were, in a real sense, speculative and aspirational.  Tuberculosis (TB) had topped the list of causes of death in New York City for decades, and the call to action was urgent.

Sea View Patient Pavilion with Balconies, NYC Dept. of Records.

For the next 40 years, research and medical treatment were conducted alongside the general care of tuberculosis patients at Sea View.  Fresh air, sunshine, and a nutritious diet – all known at the time to have therapeutic effects on TB patients – were woven into the hospital’s design and provided patients with relief and, on occasion, recovery.

Indeed, until a cure was discovered, Sea View’s most therapeutic agents may well have been its location, site planning, and design.  Archival photos of onsite vegetable gardens, hiking trails, patient pavilions with balconies, and social gathering spaces all read like an early manual for what planners today call “Active Design” and presaged the 21st-century distillation of core Healthy Community goals: physical activity, fresh local food, access to nature, and sociability.  Then, in the early 1950s, doctors at Sea View began clinical trials of hydrazides.  That drug famously led to the widespread cure of the disease, and is now part of Sea View’s public health legacy.

Architects of the Seaview Hospital Complex: Renwick, Aspinwall & Owen and that firm’s successor-Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker, Raymond F. Almirall and Charles B. Meyer.

Many structures on the Seaview campus are abandoned and you can catch a glimpse of the Delft tile ceramic tiles on the exterior.

THOSE WHO TENDED TO THE PATIENTS AT SEAVIEW

Black Angels Nurses at Sea View Hospital Honored in New Mural

from Untapped New York

Just in time for Black History Month, a new mural has just been unveiled at Staten Island’s Sea View Hospital. “The Spirit of Sea View” by Yana Dimitrova, depicts the hospital’s deep history dedicated to serving the most vulnerable populations of New York, including the role of the Black Angels. The project was completed under New York City Health + Hospitals Community Murals Project in partnership with the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund and is located in the E. Robitzek Building at Sea View. It consists of four panels, each highlighting significant individuals and events of Sea View’s past. In the mural, you’ll see a reference to the Delft terra cotta panels that were salvaged from the abandoned tuberculosis buildings in the hospital.

The first panel highlights Sea View’s beginnings as a part of the New York City Farm Colony. Founded in 1829 as the Richmond County Poor Farm, it welcomed the poor, mentally ill, criminals, and other outcasts of the time. In exchange for a place to stay, people were given work on the farm and in various shops that specialized in skills such as carpentry, print, and tailoring. Seaview Hospital was built as a tuberculosis sanatorium right by the Staten Island farm colony, and the two later merged in 1915, forming Seaview Farms. Combining the farm colony and the hospital enabled both institutions to maximize each others’ resources and services.

Panel ones depicts individuals involved in manual labor such as farming and construction. Photo by Michael Paras.

Called Black Angels by their parents, around 300 of African American nurses came to Seaview from across the country between 1928 to 1960 to help patients fight tuberculosis. Although many white nurses left Seaview during the height of the pandemic, Black nurses fearlessly and heroically served patients at the risk of their own lives. Their story will also be the subject of a forthcoming book from Oprah Books by Mara Smilios, The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis.

Panel three continues the narrative of Seaview’s integral role in the tuberculosis pandemic. In it, Dr. Edward H. Robitzek, who discovered a cure for tuberculosis, has provided the mediation to a patient who is celebrating her recovery. Before, the only recommendations doctors could recommend for tuberculosis patients were ample sunlight, fresh air, and a good diet. However, Dr. Robitzek’s discovery of the effectiveness of the drug isoniazid led to drastic recoveries in patients who were likely to die from the disease. Alongside the Black Angels, Dr. Robitzek is portrayed as another commendable hero of Seaview’s history

The final panel reflects the present. Although for many years Sea View’s buildings were abandoned and forgotten, they have been revived and transformed into a rehabilitation center, nursing home, and a volunteer fire company as a part of The New York City Economic Development Corp’s efforts to create a Wellness Community. In the mural, the patient is the portrait of Miss Marquita, an actual patient of Sea View, in the greenhouse of the hospital. The four panels reflect the rich history of a hospital that has created opportunities for the poor, served tuberculosis patients with the help of Black Angels, and helped instigate a cure for tuberculosis patients.

MONDAY PHOTO

Send your entry to ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM

WEEKEND PHOTO

The Wrigley Building in Chicago
T.W. Visee, Andy Sparberg got it!

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c)

ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
NEW YORK HEALTH + HOSPITALS
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
NYC MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES

Sources:
JUDITH BERDY
THE ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY (C)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS 
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD

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