Scientific American Magazine Explores Roosevelt Island's Past and Future - From World War 2 Medical Experiments On Human Guinea Pigs To 21st Century Cornell - Technion High Tech Science and Engineering School

 Goldwater Hospital Image from Capital New York

Roosevelt Island was the subject of two January 31 Scientific American articles. The first reported on the past history of Goldwater Hospital, the future site of the Cornell/Technion Applied Sciences and Engineering School. According to Scientific American:

Roosevelt Island was once home to the founders of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), not to mention important studies of malaria, frostbite and saltwater consumption

The aging Goldwater Memorial Hospital on Roosevelt Island—soon to be the site of Cornell University's new NYC Tech Campus—holds a significant place in 20th-century medicine.

During World War II, Goldwater researchers participated in a government program that recruited conscientious objectors from the Civilian Public Service (CPS)—set up in 1941 for draftees willing to serve their country but unwilling to engage in military service—to take part in various medical experiments. CPS volunteers became human guinea pigs. In a 100-bed Goldwater research unit, Columbia University and New York University physicians studied the effects of malaria, cold weather, starvation, arthritis, liver disease and other conditions on CPS volunteers, according to Judith Berdy, president of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society and an island resident since 1977....

Also, according to the National Institute of Health:

Goldwater Memorial Hospital in New York was the focus of antimalarial drug research during World War II. Dr. James A. Shannon led the group, which included Drs. Bernard Brodie, Sidney Udenfriend, and Robert Berliner, and future Nobel Prize winner Julius Axelrod. Dr. Robert Bowman came to Goldwater after the war.

Goldwater Memorial Hospital opened in 1939 as the first public hospital in America devoted solely to the treatment of chronic diseases. In 1942 it became the focal point for a national campaign to develop a new treatment for malaria-one of the most significant medical problems for the Allies in World War II. During the war, in the basement of Goldwater's Building D, were assembled what has been called "the workings of elite science", the scientists who would go on to develop many of the great biomedical research advances in the postwar era....

Click here for the entire Scientific American article on Goldwater Hospital research unit.

Image From Cornell In NYC

Scientific American transitions from Roosevelt Island's Goldwater Hospital past to its Cornell/Technion future in second article:

... The purpose of this high-tech venture is to turn the 52-hectare sliver of land in the East River between Manhattan and Queens into a techno island of sorts, an incubator for start-ups akin to what Stanford University has done in Silicon Valley and Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (M.I.T.) role in the Boston area.

By 2027 Cornell and Technion plan to have built more than half of their 18.6-hectare NYC Tech Campus on the site of Roosevelt Island's Goldwater Memorial Hospital, just south of the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge. Coursework aimed at cultivating health care, social media and green energy entrepreneurs could begin on site as early as 2017. Cornell and Technion hope to attract 2,500 students and 280 professors learning, teaching and living on the island within two decades....

Click here for entire Scientific American article on Roosevelt Island's future with Cornell/Technion.