Smallpox Hospital, 2005
Opened in 1856, the Smallpox Hospital was designed by James Renwick, the architect best known for creating St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. The hospital represents one of the first serious attempts in the United States to quarantine sick citizens. Blackwell Island, later known as Welfare Island, and today as Roosevelt Island, was for 113 years the “heartbreak house … the miserable sewer into which New York dumped its pitiful sweepings.” The building was abandoned in the 1950s and the magnificent gothic ruin sits at the south end of the Island. The Citicorp Building is seen through the windows.
Photo by Steve Duncan. www.undercity.org, www.steveduncanphotos.com
