Cornell Tech Preserves Historic Goldwater Hospital WPA Murals For New Roosevelt Island Campus

From the Roosevelt Island Twitterverse

How 3 historic murals were preserved for our Roosevelt Island campus: https://t.co/XiPCnHAGds

— Cornell Tech (@cornell_tech) January 30, 2017

During April 25, 2016 meeting of Roosevelt Island Cornell Tech Construction & Community Task Force, Roosevelt Island Historical Society (RIHS) President Judy Berdy and Cornell Tech Director of Capital Projects Andrew Winters discuss restoration and preservation of Goldwater Hospital WPA Murals.



More on the Goldwater WPA murals at Hyperallergic.

Cornell Tech Roosevelt Island Community Update - December 8 Town Hall Meeting, New President Elizabeth Garrett Visits, Barging, Saving Trees, Goldwater Murals Restoration & More

New Cornell President Elizabeth Garrett With Cornell Tech's Dan Huttenlocher and Andrew Winters Visits Roosevelt Island Oct 13

With the departure of former Cornell Tech Vice President Cathy Dove to a new position as President of the Paul Smith's College, the Roosevelt Island Community Report Ms. Dove wrote will now be an update provided by Cornell Tech.

Updates from Cornell Tech

As many of you already know, Cornell Tech opened a community space at Gallery RIVAA at 527 Main Street in September. Jane Swanson, Assistant Director of Government and Community Relations at Cornell Tech, is on site every Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. and 1-4 p.m. Cornell Tech plans to bring its vision and its interplay of technology and creativity to the wider community through the space, and to host programming from the larger Cornell University community. Cornell Tech encourages everyone to stop by Gallery RIVAA to learn about the campus and see the amazing works of art on view at the gallery.

Other recent and upcoming Cornell Tech news:

Community: Cornell Tech volunteers participated in last month’s “Fall for Arts” Festival and Halloween parade.

Updates from the Cornell Tech Community and Construction Task force meeting:

• Cornell Tech has avoided 3,350 truck trips through our use of barging, and that number is growing every week.
• Cornell Tech continued the community conversation about tree conservation, which Cornell Tech is committed to. Cornell Tech and its engineer presented some modified designs and walked the task force through each configuration as they relate to pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular traffic. Cornell Tech will continue to keep the task force updated as we work together to strike a balance between tree conservation, safety and the need to provide robust infrastructure to support the site.
• Cornell Tech showed images of the historic murals uncovered at Goldwater hospital that are currently being restored at two conservation studios. The murals will eventually be displayed on Cornell Tech’s campus.
• Cornell Tech continues to work with PS/IS 217, including after school programs on computational literacy.

Town Hall: Join Cornell Tech for a town hall meeting on December 8, 6 p.m. at Manhattan Park Community Center, 8 River Road.

Updates from Cornell Tech’s temporary campus at Google:

• More than 100 students are enrolled in three masters and PhD programs.
• Four new faculty members have joined the campus.
• The incoming new President of Cornell University, Elizabeth Garrett, has already visited Cornell Tech and Roosevelt Island. Ms. Garrett assumes the presidency on July 1, 2015. Cornell’s current President, David Skorton, will become the new Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute.

For more information, visit construction.tech.cornell.edu.

Demolition, Barging And Overview Update Of Roosevelt Island Cornell NYC Tech Project Presented At Community Board 8 Meeting - Residential Design Presentation May 1

During Community Board 8's (CB 8) April 16 meeting, Cornell NYC Tech Director of Community Relations Jane Swanson and Director of Capital Planning Andrew Winters gave a presentation updating the status of the Roosevelt Island project including demolition of Goldwater Hospital

Image From Judy Berdy

the use of barges to remove the demolition debris

Image From Judy Berdy

and an overview of the entire project.

Here's what Mr. Winters and Ms. Swanson had to say including answering questions from the audience.



According to the Cornell Tech's Roosevelt Island Construction Project site:

April 11 - April 25 Look Ahead

Work continues in buildings C, D, F, and H. Interior demolition has moved quickly through many floors and the abatement phase has begun in multiple buildings. There are also smaller, localized interior abatement projects underway in additional buildings at the Goldwater site.

Since the last construction update, the barge returned to remove debris. Given the interior demolition progress, barging trips will occur more frequently in the coming weeks. While Cornell continues to remove all demolition debris via barging, there are times when trucks with containers may be seen outside of the construction fence. Until one connector building is fully demolished, trucks must travel outside of the construction fence in order to get to the other side of the site. This issue will resolve itself as demolition gets further along. In addition, a small number of trucks should be expected because of the delivery and removal of materials, supplies, and small equipment.

The art conservation firms selected to remove and restore the WPA murals have mobilized on site. Testing of removal methodologies is underway on all three murals. We are on track for actual removal of the works of art later this month. After leaving Goldwater, the murals will undergo conservation work in the firms’ respective studios.

Available options for providing safe vehicular access to the South Point and Four Freedoms Parks continue to be studied by the engineering team.


March 28 - April 11 Look Ahead

Work continues on site and is expanding to include more buildings. By the week of March 31st, work will be taking place simultaneously in buildings C, D, F, and H. Within these, various stages of interior demolition and interior abatement will be underway.

As work expands across the site, disposal containers are quickly filling up. Debris is currently being stockpiled, in anticipation of a barge trip the week of April 7th. Barge operations are generally scheduled when approximately 60 containers are full.

Cornell continues to study the design of the west road to determine the best solution to provide safe vehicular access to South Point and Four Freedoms Parks.

Two art conservation firms have been engaged to remove and conserve three murals that are in the day rooms in Building B. All three works of art date from the Works Progress Administration era. Their proposed treatment plans are currently under review by the New York City Public Design Commission and work will begin when the plans are approved.

March 14 - March 28 Look Ahead

Now that the construction fence is fully installed, interior demolition is well underway. The two upper floors of Building C are nearly complete. The barge will return for debris removal once a sufficient number of containers are full.

Staff from the U.S. Geological Survey will be finishing their data collection in the coming weeks.

The exterior air quality baseline has been established. The report prepared by the air monitoring firm will be posted to this site shortly. It includes details on their means and methods, maps showing sampling locations, the actual data readings, and analysis. Air monitoring will be ongoing and shared with the community via the construction website on a regular basis.

We are reviewing the proposed modifications to the west road to confirm that the original idea of restriping the roadway meets the Island’s transportation needs.

There will be a meeting of CB 8's Roosevelt Island Committee on Thursday May 1 at 6:30 pm in 546 Main Street - 12th floor. Cornell NYC Tech will be giving a design presentation of the residential building.

Goldwater Hospital Walls Tell Their Story With Help From Roosevelt Island Historical Society President Judy Berdy During Talk Tomorrow At Public Library - What Will Happen To The Displaced Patients?

Roosevelt Island Historical Society (RIHS) President Judy Berdy will be giving a talk on the history of Goldwater Hospital

tomorrow 6:30 PM at the Roosevelt Island Public Library.  According to the RIHS:

IF THE WALLS OF GOLDWATER HOSPITAL COULD TALK

Seemingly a fortress, Goldwater's fierce exterior belies its history as a center of innovation. Historian Judith Berdy will recount little-known aspects of Goldwater Hospital's past, such as several notable experiments in medical care and the integration of the disabled in a residential setting, in a lecture sponsored by the Roosevelt Island Historical Society, of which she is President, at the New York Public Library Branch on Roosevelt Island, on Tuesday, March 12, at 6:30 p.m.

Even in its architectural design, Goldwater is notable for its open and airy layout, incorporating community space with individual patient rooms for its long-term residents. In the 1930s, several recreational rooms were painted by artists through a program sponsored by the Works Progress Administration. Sadly, three of the four murals were painted over and it is hoped that Cornell University will remove and restore them. The fourth mural has been restored and is visible today.

In addition to serving as a home to more than 1,000 residents, Goldwater has also gained cinematic fame as the setting for numerous films. The Exorcist, Cold Souls and the remake of Arthur were all set at the hospital.

The lecture is both a celebration of Goldwater Hospital, which has led the way in treatment of patients with tuberculosis, polio, AIDS, and other long-term chronic diseases, plus a farewell. The hospital is scheduled to close in December 2013.

The event is FREE and open to the public. It is the second in a series of spring lectures sponsored by the Roosevelt Island Historical Society.

More information on the WPA Mural program at Goldwater available

Abstraction by Ilya Bolotowsky* WPA Mural Restored at Goldwater Hospital - Image from RIHS

at American Abstract Artists:

The WPA/FAP hired Ilya Bolotowsky to create a mural, Abstraction 1941, for the Day Room of the Hospital for Chronic Diseases on Welfare Island in New York City. The hospital was later renamed Goldwater Memorial Hospital, and is now called Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility, on what is now Roosevelt Island. Ilya Bolotowsky’s mural fell victim to neglect and was painted over in the 1950s....

The Ilya Bolotowsky Mural at Goldwater Hospital has been restored.

Goldwater Hospital is scheduled to close in December 2013 to make way for the new Cornell NYC Tech Applied Sciences and Engineering School. As previously reported:

... the closing of Goldwater Hospital was planned for a long time and had nothing to do with the NYC Applied Sciences and Engineering School being located on Roosevelt Island....

Gothamist has more on the Goldwater patients being displaced by the closing of the hospital and what is happening to them.

 Image From Daniel Tepper via Gothamist

According to Gothamist:

... Most patients at the facility have no income and are supported through Medicaid. They have no say in their future and there is little else they can do but wait to be relocated. "Some of the patients will end up at a new facility in Harlem, some may end up at Coler," Hernández, the hospital spokeswoman said. "We have staff who are working with the individual patients to make sure that people end up in a placement that's appropriate for them…the process is ongoing." The new $285 million, 365-bed facility in Harlem, named the Henry J. Carter Campus, will be located in two separate buildings and is set to open by the end of the year. "The residents will be provided with orientation to the new facility and to the new community they'll be joining," Hernández said. "Our patients have been well cared for in Roosevelt Island and they'll be well cared for in Harlem."...

Click here for the entire Gothamist article.