North General Hospital


North General Hospital was an American private, not-for-profit, voluntary teaching hospital located in New York City in the East Harlem section of Manhattan at Marcus Garvey Park. It was founded in 1979 to replace, as tenant, the Hospital for Joint Diseases, which vacated its East Harlem facility and moved that same year downtown to East 17th street at Stuyvesant Square. NGH was the only minority-run, voluntary teaching hospital in the State of New York. NGH was also the only private hospital in Harlem. After 31 years, North General Hospital closed in 2010 under financial duress of bankruptcy.

History

The New York City government had endured a severe fiscal crisis in 1975. Two years later, in 1977, the Hospital for Joint Diseases — which had occupied the East Harlem location on Madison Avenue, between 123rd and 124th streets, since 1905 — began construction on a new building, downtown, East 17th street at Second Avenue, across from Stuyvesant Square. In 1979, HJD moved there. The move was a loss for the Harlem community.
Leading up to the move, advocacy groups waged a campaign to keep a hospital at the Madison Avenue location. Randolph Guggenheimer, the hospital's only trustee at the time, and Eugene Louis McCabe spearheaded an effort to insure that hospital services would continue in the old building, which was renamed North General Hospital. On January 28, 1977, a New York charter was made, forming the corporation of Joint Diseases North General Hospital.

Economic backdrop

became Mayor of New York on January 1, 1978, and soon after taking office, began working on the City budget, which was still an ominous concern in the wake of the fiscal crisis that nearly bankrupted the city in 1975. Koch, in short order, imposed an additional 10% reduction in funding for municipal hospitals and slated Metropolitan Hospital and Sydenham Hospital for closure. Sydenham closed in the Spring of 1980 despite wide criticism that Harlem's medical needs were being neglected.
NGH's economic impact on Harlem had been cited as significant. Journal of Health and Human Resources Administration published in 1988 that North General Hospital was the largest private employer in Harlem. Over 70 percent of its workforce resided in Harlem.

1979 – Joint Diseases North General Hospital is founded

In 1979, after HJD moved downtown, the Joint Diseases North General Hospital became the new occupant in Harlem. The challenge for NGH, for its entire existence, was laden with fiscal stress, partly owed to a need for capital expenditures to restore and upgrade an aged, decaying building – a facility that NGH did not own in the beginning. NGH also weathered fiscal stress from treating significantly higher percentage of patients who were either uninsured or low income or both.

1987

On October 27, 1987, Joint Diseases North General Hospital shortened its name to "North General Hospital." By then, Governor Mario Cuomo had approved a state grant of $118 million toward the North General hospital construction. That year, the hospital was operating on a $42 million budget with 1,900 employees – 70 percent living in Harlem.

1991 – new building, new location

On December 12, 1991, North General Hospital moved into a newly built, modern facility at 1879 Madison Avenue, between 120th and 121st Streets, two blocks south of its old address.

Signs of systemic financial duress

By 2004, private hospitals in New York City were in arrears by more than $100 million in payments to employee benefit and pension funds, double the amount of 2003. Wall Street debt analysts rated hospitals of New York State the weakest in the nation and stated that the situation was worsening. Eight accounted for two-thirds of the debt: Brookdale in Brooklyn, Jamaica and Parkway Hospitals in Queens, Saint Vincent's and Beth Israel Medical Center, each with several locations in multiple boroughs and headquartered in Manhattan, North General Hospital, Cabrini Medical Center, both in Manhattan, and Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center in the Bronx.

2010 – closing

At May 31, 2010, North General Hospital had a debt of $293 million. Barely two months after the closing of Saint Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village, North General Hospital – which, according to the New York Times, had become a symbol of New York City's political and philanthropic commitment to Harlem – announced on June 28, 2010, that it would close four days later – on July 2, 2010. On that same day – July 2, 2010 – North General Hospital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and actually closed on July 9, 2010. Effective June 30, 2011, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York approved a Chapter 11 Plan of Liquidation for North General Hospital and its affiliated debtors. Under the Plan, a Liquidation Trustee was appointed and the assets of North General Hospital were sold and/or transferred back to the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York. Rev. Calvin O. Butts III had been Chairman of the Board at the time.

Post-closing analysis

With respect to the loss of emergency rooms in New York City, the New York Times, in 2011, pointed out that the city lost three hospital emergency rooms in 2008, two in 2009, and two in 2010 – Saint Vincent's and North General. Saint Vincent's had handled more than 60,000 emergency visits a year, while North General's ER had recorded 36,000 annual visits. Peninsula Hospital in Far Rockaway, Queens closed in 2012.

New facility and hospital provider at 1879 Madison Avenue

Sometime between 2010 and 2012, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation took over the former site of North General Hospital – at 1879 Madison Avenue, between 121st and 122nd streets. In 2012, the facility was renamed the "Henry J. Carter Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility," in honor of Hank Carter, the Founder and CEO of Wheelchair Charities, Inc. A new building for the Carter Center was completed on the site around 2016.

Residential co-ops at the old location at 1919 Madison

Maple Plaza, an eight-story, 155-unit residential co-op was built at 1919 Madison Avenue in the 1990s when North General Hospital moved into its new quarters two blocks south. Maple Plaza was developed in the 1990s under a plan by the city and North General Hospital to revive the area around the hospital, which, at the time was blighted. Maple Court, another similar project in the area with 135 units, was completed before Maple Plaza.

Selected NGH programs

The Helene Fuld College of Nursing was founded in 1945 by the predecessor of North General Hospital, the Hospital for Joint Diseases. The nursing college, then a school, was named after Helene Fuld in 1955 after it received a grant from the Helene Fuld Health Foundation – a foundation established by Leonhard Felix Fuld, LLM, PhD, a benefactor of North General Hospital, in honor of his mother, Helene Fuld ''.

Records repository

A wikt:repository of records pertaining to medical staff, residency training, and other related matters are available through the Federation Credentials Verification Service, which is administered by the Federation of State Medical Boards

Selected personnel

Physicians

  • Michael Palese, MD, chief of urology at the North General Hospital from 2004 to 2008

    Trustees (directors)

  • Randolph Guggenheimer, founding trustee, and upon retirement, was named chairman emeritus
  • Livingston Le Stanley Francis, chairperson in 1998; among other things, Francis was vice chairman of the United Hospital Fund of New York
  • Edward E. Davis, Jr., trustee
  • Eugene A. Norman, trustee, who also served as chairperson
  • Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, chairperson
  • Eugene Giscombe, vice-chairperson; born in Harlem, he was a noted Harlem real estate developer; Giscombe was known as the "Mayor of 125th Street"
  • Mark Jeziorski, trustee
  • Janice Savin Williams, investment banker and community activist
  • Bernard Aronson
  • Jewell Jackson McCabe, once married to NGH president and CEO Eugene Louis McCabe
  • Antonio Pérez, EdD, served as a director until 2008. While a director, he had served as secretary of the board. He had been appointed president of Borough of Manhattan Community College in 1995.
  • Natan Wekselbaum served as director until 2007. He was then the president and CEO of Gracious Home, a Manhattan hardware and home furnishing store that had been in his family from 1963 to 2010.
  • Steven C. Bussey served as director until 2007. In 2010, Bussey became a managing director at Alvarez & Marsal. From 2011 to 2015, he was CEO of Harlem United Community Aids Center, Inc.
  • Renelda Higgins was named director in 1990. Since at least 1985, Higgins had been the director of public relations. Her former husband, Chester Arthur Higgins, Jr., is a notable photographer and son of journalist Chester Arthur Higgins, Sr., who, among other things, was editor of The Crisis'' from 1981 to 1983. One of five siblings, Renelda's younger brother, Reginald Kline Meeks, was, in 2000, elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives. Renelda remarried in the early 1990s to Benjamin J. Walker, Jr..
  • Arthur Ashe became a board member February 1992. He died in 1993.

    Executives

President and CEO

  • 1979–1998: Eugene Louis McCabe, a healthcare activist, was founding president and CEO until his death. With philanthropist Randolph Guggenheimer, McCabe was co-founder of North General Hospital. McCabe was married to, divorced from, but remained close friends with Jewell Jackson McCabe, feminist, business executive, and social and political activist. When Gene McCabe died, he was married to Elsie, , who, in 2009, married New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson. Before marrying McCabe, Elsie had been divorced from Roger Ellington Coy, whom she married in 1990. On February 1, 1996, the president of Hunter College, David Caputo, bestowed McCabe with the President's Award.
  • 1999–2001: Harold Page Freeman, MD, was named president and CEO North General Hospital in 1999. He was the former president of the American Cancer Society and, before being appointed, was chief of surgery at NGH.
  • 2001–2010: Samuel J. Daniel, MD , President and CEO North General Hospital Daniel is married to Cheryl Joan McKissack, granddaughter of Moses McKissack III. Moses III and his brother, Calvin Lunsford McKissack co-founded in 1905 the family architectural and engineering firm, McKissack & McKissack, the first African-American-owned architectural firm in the United States and currently the oldest African American-owned architecture and engineering firm in the country.
  • 2010–2011: John P. Maher, who had served as chief financial officer since 2006, was, on August 5, 2010, promoted to president and chief restructuring officer