Roosevelt Island Meeting On Future Of Goldwater Hospital Site - What Will Happen When It Closes? Council Member Lappin & Assembly Member Kellner Hold Town Hall Meeting On Subject

Received the following message from Roosevelt Island's New York City Council Member Jessica Lappin's office:

Join Council Member Jessica Lappin and Assembly Member Micah Kellner For a Roosevelt Island Town Hall Meeting On The Future OF Goldwater Hospital

Last June, the new York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) announced plans to relocate patients from Goldwater Hospital to a site in Harlem and close the Goldwater Campus. Come to learn more about these plans and what they mean for Roosevelt island and its residents.


Representatives from HHC and Goldwater will be on hand to make a presentation and answer your questions. We hope to see you there.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

6:30 pm

Good shepherd chapel

(Community room) 543 Main Street

What's going to happen to the Goldwater site? Remember this 2009 post:

Our friends over at Curbed alerted us to this post from blogger Smart Growth regarding a NY State plan called Transforming Roosevelt Island. According to Smart Growth:

Plans are being drawn up to demolish two long-term care hospitals on Roosevelt Island and replace them with 1500 new residential units south of the Queensboro Bridge and 900 more units on the Coler Hospital site. The Coler site will have a new state of the art healthcare facility with some supportative housing units....

Image of Coler-Goldwater Site in Transform Roosevelt Island Plan from Smart Growth

At that time, Roosevelt Island 360 reported of Smart Growth:

... their source is someone working directly on developing the TRI Project ("Transforming Roosevelt Island") and cannot be revealed at this time as "its still a work in progress"....

Nothing more became known of this plan but there have been fears of condos replacing the Goldwater campus before.

Southtown resident and 2010 Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) Delegate Nominee Stephen Silverstein forwards this message he sent to Ms. Lappin regarding the future of the Goldwater Hospital site

Thank you for sponsoring a town hall meeting on this topic. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend this Wednesday, but I wanted to quickly share my thoughts regarding future development of the site. I would recommend a Performing Arts Center on the site, with one example being a complex that includes a satellite extension of Silvercup or Kaufman studios, an indoor theater and an outdoor amphiteater to take advantage of the dramatic views for outdoor performances of both music and theater. I believe an Arts Center would bring welcome tourism to the island without a severe impact on our transportation infrastructure, especially if an adjacent dock for ferry service is planned. Television or film studios with a visitor center and viewing areas for live filming would be a unique attraction for NYC. Perhaps a museum could also be attracted to the site.

In any case, what cannot be allowed to happen is for the Goldwater Hospital site to remain an abandoned and condemned hazardous eyesore.

Unfortunately, the Goldwater Town Hall Meeting is being held the same evening as the RIRA WIRE Candidate Night and Presidential Debate. However, they are all being held in the Good Shepherd Community Center and the Goldwater Meeting is starting at 6:30 before the others.

UPDATE 5:45 PM - Roosevelt Island resident Lisa Forsee has some thoughts on what should replace Goldwater Hospital:

I would like to put the idea out there of an animal sanctuary to be built on the property, maybe along side of a Botanical Garden.

To my knowledge there is not one in this area, or even in the NYC area close by for us to enjoy, by " us" I mean the people that live " in the city ".  Being on an Island we have the perfect resources and wildlife that are very much in need of one.

I find it hard to believe that Roosevelt Island does not even have a " Wildlife Dept" here. It's time to show we are Green here on RI as well. There is so much animal life here indigenous to Roosevelt Island and NY, I do think it would be a wonderful thing to do for our city, our children, our island and the people of NYC. We must protect the wildlife that is here, and maybe bring back some that has gone. We must not forget the wildlife that was here long before any of us were and we must protect those species before they are long gone. 

Please think about that idea, it could be one of the best ideas yet. We could maybe have a Ferry service here and a boat house and maybe restaurant at the south tip to bring people to visit the Sanctuary so folks can see that there is a little bit of nature and wildlife in such a busy city! The walks by the water lined with park benches and the views of the mainland of Manhattan would make a beautiful frame for a couple acres of picnic grounds as well. 

Thanks for your ear,