Queens Hospital Center


Queens Hospital Center, also known as NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens and originally called Queens General Hospital, is a large public hospital campus in the Jamaica Hills and Hillcrest neighborhoods of Queens in New York City. It is operated by NYC Health + Hospitals, a public benefit corporation of the city.
Queens General Hospital opened in 1935 as the first municipal general hospital in the borough. It would absorb the adjacent Queensboro Hospital for Communicable Diseases shortly after opening, and the campus would later include Triboro Hospital for Tuberculosis, which opened in 1941. Queens Hospital Center was formed in 1952 and 1959 with the official merger of the three hospitals along with two other Queens medical facilities. The current campus consists of modern buildings constructed in the 21st century, along with the former Triboro Hospital building.

Campus

Queens Hospital Center is located on a campus in the Hillcrest neighborhood of Queens. The large property is bound by Parsons Boulevard to the west and 164th Street to the east, with Goethals Avenue to the north. At the south end of the site is the Grand Central Parkway, though most of the campus ends one block north at 82nd Drive.
The main building, opened in 2001, is located at the southwest corner of 164th Street and 82nd Road just north of the Grand Central Parkway. The building was designed by the Perkins and Will and Davis Brody Bond architectural firms, with a largely-glass outer facade. It has of space and 200 beds. It features private and semi-private patient rooms, in contrast to the large hospital wards of the previous buildings. Adjacent to the south of the main building fronting the Grand Central is the only remaining pre-2000 hospital building. This is the "N Building", the former Queens Hospital Center School of Nursing built in 1956. It is connected to the main building by an atrium structure. The nursing school graduated its final class in June 1977.
Across to the north from the main building is the Claire Shulman Pavilion, opened in 2007. It is an outpatient ambulatory care facility. It was designed by the Perkins Eastman firm, and constructed by Dormitory Authority of the State of New York. It is six-stories high extending across from east-to-west, and has of space. The outer facade consists of precast concrete, with glass curtain walls on the east and south faces. The building has a structural steel frame with a cantilever spine. The interior utilizes modular walls to allow for quick expansion of clinics. The entrance to the building at 164th Street has a two-story atrium and entrance plaza. A public concourse runs along the south side of the building. Two bridges connect with the main QHC building, each measuring in length. Services provided at the Shulman Pavilion include a diabetes treatment center, primary care, child development and early childhood intervention, pediatrics, psychiatry, ophthalmology, and dentistry.
At the west end of the campus on Parsons Boulevard between 82nd Drive and Goethals Avenue is "Building T" or the "T Building". It was originally the Triboro Hospital for Tuberculosis, completed in 1941. The building was designed by architect John Russell Pope, and later by the Eggers & Higgins firm after Pope's death, in Art Moderne-style. Then-New York City Commissioner of Hospitals Dr. Sigismund Goldwater supervised the design. A tunnel in the basement connected to the now demolished Queens General Hospital buildings. The T Building is currently used by QHC for administrative offices, storage, and clinic and psychiatric services. Several clinics were relocated to the Shulman Pavilion when it opened in 2007. More services have been relocated from the T Building since then, due to the deteriorating condition of the building.
In between the Shulman Pavilion and the Triboro Hospital, at the corner of 82nd Drive and 161st Street is an Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York. It is a morgue, providing autopsy and mortuary services. The building was constructed circa 2007.
At the northeast corner of the campus, at 164th Street and Goethals Avenue, is the power plant for the hospital. The two-story Art Deco brick building was completed in 1932, built along with the original Queens General Hospital, and was considered a modern facility at the time of its construction. One of its most notable features is its large chimney. Adjacent to the west between 160th and 161st Streets is the Queens Gateway to Health Sciences Secondary School, a grades 6–12 public school. Adjacent to the west of the school is FDNY EMS Station 50, opened in July 2016, which oversee FDNY ambulances and contains the Queens East EMS Borough Command Center. The EMS station, designed by Dean-Wolf Architects, has a glass and aluminum outer facade, a steel frame, and a concrete foundation with a cantilever shape due to the topography of the area. It is the largest EMS station in the borough. Another EMS station and medical examiner building, and storage and utility buildings were previously located along Goethals Avenue. At the western end of the block on Parsons Boulevard adjacent to Building T is a storage garage known as the "S Building", built in 1957.

Old Queens General Hospital buildings

As originally constructed in 1935, the Queens General Hospital consisted of eleven buildings. Prior to the construction of the current campus, the site contained 14 buildings. Most of the buildings in the complex were constructed of brick, and all of the original buildings were connected by tunnels.
The original main Queens General Hospital building fronted 164th Street between 82nd Road and the power plant, on the site of the current Pavilion. It was built in Art Deco-style. It stood nine stories tall, with two additional floors at the center of the structure. The building was set back from the street. Its outer facade consisted of orange or salmon-colored brick, with sandstone trim. It originally housed 582 beds. There were three wards per floor, for a total of 18 wards. In the sub-basement were a storeroom and sewage utilities. The basement contained kitchens and cafeterias, a record room, a patient library, and a pharmacy. A sunroom was located on the tenth floor. Murals created by Georgette Seabrooke and William C. Palmer were present in the building.
Located on the site of the current main building and nursing school were a nurses home for housing nurses, an employee's home for medical residents and hospital superintendents, and a staff building for administrative offices. Along Goethals Avenue, where the Queens Gateway School and EMS station now sit, were the power plant, a laundry facility, a garage for ambulance storage, an industrial workshop for creating furniture and other items, and the mortuary building. The morgue, which occupied the site of the school on 160th Street, was a small salmon brick building, and served as a municipal morgue for the entire borough. This site was found to be contaminated with petroleum prior to the construction of the school. In between Goethals Avenue and 82nd Drive, along the right-of-way of 160th Street near the current morgue, was the Queensboro Hospital which became Queens General's contagious disease division called the Queensboro Pavilion. It consisted of two buildings. Only the power plant survives from the original 1930s campus.

Transportation

The bus route runs north-to-south along 164th Street on the east side of the campus, serving the main buildings. The Q25 bus run along Parsons Boulevard at the west end of the campus, directly serving Building T. The, and buses runs along Union Turnpike two blocks north of the hospital grounds, which gets very good usage by this hospitals personnel, and out-patients as well. The closest New York City Subway stations are the Parsons Boulevard station of the IND Queens Boulevard Line on Hillside Avenue to the south, connected by the Q25 and Q65, and the Kew Gardens–Union Turnpike station to the west connected by the Q45, Q46 and Q48. The Q25 and Q65 routes also connect with the Jamaica Center–Parsons/Archer subway station on Parsons and Archer Avenues, and the Sutphin Boulevard–Archer Avenue–JFK Airport subway and Jamaica Long Island Rail Road stations on Supthin Boulevard and Archer Avenue.

Service area

Although it is located approximately between Northeast Queens and Southeast Queens, Queens Hospital Center predominantly serves neighborhoods in Southeast Queens south of Union Turnpike and east of the Van Wyck Expressway. These areas include Jamaica, South Jamaica, Hollis, Queens Village, Springfield Gardens, Cambria Heights, St. Albans, and Rosedale. The hospital also serves areas of Flushing, Oakland Gardens. and Fresh Meadows within the 11364, 11365, 11366, and 11367 zip codes, as well as parts of Richmond Hill, Ozone Park, and South Ozone Park which lie west of the Van Wyck. As of 2016, over 40 percent of the service area's population is Black, including African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans. Of the remaining population, 15 percent is Hispanic or Latino, 10 percent identifies as Asian or Pacific Islander, and 4 percent identifies as White. A significant portion of the service area consists of South Asian immigrants from nations such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, as well as Guyanese. Much of the population is foreign-born and low income.

History

The 22-acre site of Queens Hospital Center was originally the Haack farm, purchased by the city in 1903. The first hospital on the site was the Queensboro Hospital for Communicable Diseases, located east of Parsons Boulevard. It was designed by architects William E. Austin and George W. Conable, and opened on June 29, 1916. A total of 20 buildings were initially planned for the hospital. A second building was completed in 1923. The first morgue in Queens was opened at the hospital in 1930.

Construction of Queens General Hospital

In 1928, Queens County Medical Society began petitioning the New York City Board of Estimate and Mayor Jimmy Walker for a free public hospital in the borough. At the time, there were no municipal general hospitals in Queens, and people were required to use Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, or Bellevue Hospital in Lower Manhattan. Queens General Hospital was proposed by the city in 1929, also referred to as the new Queensboro Hospital. The vacant property adjacent to the existing Queensboro Hospital was selected as the site for the new hospital. At the time, only five of the 22 acres on the site were occupied. The contract for general construction was approved by Board of Estimate on October 24, 1930. The cornerstone of the main building was laid by Mayor Walker on June 19, 1931, at 164th Street. The buildings were largely complete by 1932, but remained inactive due to a lack of funds to purchase equipment and furniture, and to complete the surrounding grounds. Meanwhile, a storm drain was installed along 164th Street between Goethals Avenue and 78th Road by 1933. The primitive dirt roads surrounding the hospital including 164th Street were improved and paved, with Works Progress Administration funds. Two willow trees, which originally divided farms in the area, were preserved for the hospital, and were the only trees on the hospital grounds upon its opening. On January 5, 1934, the city was awarded a Public Works Administration grant of $800,000, of which $260,000 went to the hospital project. These were the first PWA funds received by city and allowed work on buildings to be completed. The project, however, continued to suffer delays, which led to complaints and protests from local residents. Hospitals commissioner Sigismund Goldwater said that the completion of the hospital was blocked by "red tape". On October 30, 1935, the hospital was dedicated, with Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, commissioner Goldwater and Queens Borough President George U. Harvey in attendance.
The new Queens General Hospital campus was referred to as a "miniature city" due to its many buildings, and its self-sustaining facilities such as the power plant, a heating plant, and the laundry building. Among the then-modern medical innovations at the hospital were specialized X-ray equipment, radium for the treatment of cancer, and an iron lung. The first patient was admitted to Queens General Hospital on November 17, 1935. Beds in the new hospital were reserved for patients who could not afford to pay; those who could were forced to use one of the private hospitals in the borough. On March 1, 1936, the Queensboro Hospital was merged into Queens General. At this time, Queensboro Hospital was renamed the Queensboro Pavilion for Communicable Diseases. By July 1936 the hospital was overcrowded, operating at 126.3 percent capacity.
Additional storm drains were installed around hospital and in the surrounding neighborhood in 1939. Around this time the Queensboro Pavilion was renovated. Triboro Hospital for Tuberculosis was dedicated at the west end of the campus on January 28, 1941 by Mayor La Guardia, who stated that it was designed to be converted into a general hospital "twenty-five years from now."