Farewell To Roosevelt Island's Goldwater Hospital - Last Remaining Patients Transferred Today Before Demolition And Building Of Cornell NYC Tech Campus On Site
... The NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), has announced a planned relocation of patients from Coler-Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island to the new Henry J. Carter Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility at Park Avenue and East 122nd Street in Manhattan.The transfer will take place on Sunday, November 24, 2013 from 4:00am to 6:00pm, and on Monday, November 25, 2013 from 8:00 am to 7:00pm. During these times, residents can expect increased ambulance traffic on the Island....Roosevelt Island Historical Society (RIHS) President Judy Berdy was at Goldwater Hospital Sunday during the transfer of the last remaining patients and shares this report. According to Ms. Berdy:
Farewell to Goldwater Hospital
It is almost the end. Today is Sunday, November 24, 2013; tomorrow, the last patients will leave Goldwater Hospital forever. The grand bronze doors will close for a final time. (There is no key to the front door, since it has never been locked since 1939.)
I walk over early in the morning to see ambulances coming and going. Today more than 120 patients will be transferred to the new Henry J. Carter Hospital in Manhattan. Today’s patients are medically fragile and must be handled with extreme TLC. Tomorrow, another 100+ nursing home patients will be transferred to Henry J. Carter.
A tent is set up in the rear of the hospital.
Image From Judy Berdy
It looks like a tent used for VIP’s. It is breaking the freezing windy weather and heaters are on to make the transfer easier. The patients being transferred are from units are in the north end of the building, so it is a quick ride for them to enter the ambulance.
I pass the plinths where the six grand torchieres lit the ramp. They are being preserved and hopefully will be re-installed on the island.
I walk in the main entrance and down the hall.
Image From Judy Berdy
The staff is scanning ID bracelets, bundling up patients on stretchers, checking ID’s again. The patients also wear bright red tags.
Ambulance EMT’s and Paramedics are going to units and staff are accompanying the residents.
All is calm and running in order.
Every need and step in the plan has been worked out to the minute. All possible city, state agencies are here. OEM, NYPS, NYS Health Department. Representatives from every hospital department are present, wearing bright vests labeled with their job assignments. No detail is too small. This transfer has been planned for two years and in hundreds of meetings.
I venture down the hall and meet Rabbi Haim Alcabes, the Jewish Chaplain at Goldwater. We wander down the long hall
Image From Judy Berdy
toward the Chapel area where he has been chaplain for 11 years. The former Jewish Chapel is locked and vacant. All religious articles, décor and commemorative objects have been moved north to the Coler Jewish Chapel. The Catholic and Protestant Chapels are open, and vast in their emptiness.
Image From Judy Berdy
The new hospital will have new chapels and new décor.
We remember the Jewish events and holidays we celebrated at Goldwater. The rabbi tells
Image From Judy Berdy
of the Succah erected each year outside the greenhouse. We remember the high school kids he would bring to meet the residents and learn to do a mitzvah, (good deed).
All the units on the main floor are closed and locked.
Image From Judy Berdy
I walk by A-11, where my mom was a resident for two months in 2011. The residents there have been dispersed to Coler or other nursing homes and all that remains is the A11 sign.
Image From Judy Berdy
Staff has been redeployed to other HHC facilities such as Bellevue, Harlem and Metropolitan Hospitals.
A picture has been removed in the hall
Image From Judy Berdy
and a bright green tile stands out through the beige paint. Apparently, the walls were that certain hospital green tile originally. The terrace outside the Subway Sandwich shop is locked and the wind whips leaves around the picnic furniture.
We return to the lobby. A group of nurses is leaving.
Image From Judy Berdy
They are the overnight shift that sent their patients off this morning. Some have worked at Goldwater for more than 20 years; one nurse has been here 31 years. Tonight they will report to work at Henry J. Carter.
I look around the lobby and notice the alarm.
Image From Judy Berdy
My mom had an ID bracelet because she was a wanderer. We would take her out of the hospital on a pass. The alarm would sound and the hospital policeman would silence it, so she could exit. Small memories.
Next to the alarm is a plaque to a pathologist
Image From Judy Berdy
who worked at Goldwater from 1967 to 1996. Will someone take down the plaque or will he be lost to history?
The tropical fish are gone from the giant fish tank.
Image From Judy Berdy
Were they redeployed to another facility?
We walk out the bronze doors
Image From Judy Berdy
and wave goodbye to the shuttle bus.
Image From Judy Berdy
Soon there will be no shuttle bus from Goldwater to Coler.
Goldwater will be a part of Welfare Island and Roosevelt Island history.
The patients are being transferred in anticipation of Goldwater Hospital being demolished for the coming of the Roosevelt Island Cornell NYC Tech campus.
Credit: Kilograph via Cornell NYC Tech
The NY Times has more on the Goldwater Hospital patients being transferred and here is video from last July of Goldwater patients and workers testifying about their fears and concerns on the hospital's closing.
Also, remember the deal to build Cornell NYC Tech on Roosevelt Island is still not done. Cornell and the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) are still in negotiations over the section of proposed Goldwater site that RIOC and not NYC controls.
UPDATE 11/16/18 - Below is from July 2013 post:
... Here's what happened at tonight's NYC HHC Public Hearing on the transfer of Goldwater Hospital land for the new Cornell NYC Tech campus. Goldwater Hospital residents and supporters testified about their fears and concerns at the closing of the hospital. Needless to say that Mayor Bloomberg was not very popular among the Goldwater patients and workers.
Make sure to watch very moving testimony of a Goldwater resident at 7 minute mark and a worker at 22 minute 45 second mark.
