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Opened in 1933, the eight-story, six-hundred-bed psychiatric building was the largest and most recognizable structure on the Bellevue grounds. In 1985, the hospital’s psychiatric patients were moved to the upper floors of the newly completed Bellevue patient tower, and the psychiatric building, now a crumbling relic, became the city’s largest shelter for homeless men.
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Lauretta Bender, the director of Bellevue’s pediatric psychiatric unit from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s, was a pioneer in the study of childhood schizophrenia and autism. Consistently ranked as one of the leading psychiatrists of her era, Bender became an extremely controversial figure because of her use of electroshock treatment on children.
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As members of Columbia’s Chest Service at Bellevue, André Cournand (right) and Dickinson Richards shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their groundbreaking work in cardiac catheterization. Both men believed deeply in Bellevue’s mission as a medical safety net for the poor, and both worked tirelessly to improve conditions at the hospital.
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A graduate of Johns Hopkins Medical School and one of the first women to intern at Bellevue, Edith Lincoln created the pediatric Chest Service at Bellevue, which became the nation’s key research center for childhood tuberculosis. Lincoln’s greatest contribution involved the development of multidrug therapies, a concept used later in treating HIV/AIDS.
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In 1973, following thirty years of planning and delays, Bellevue opened a twenty-five-story building for inpatient care along the FDR Drive bordering the East River.
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Bellevue infectious disease specialist Fred Valentine saw several of the first AIDS cases. His files include some of the earliest recorded surveillance figures in New York City. Nobody at this point knew anything about the disease, beyond the fact that gay men were appearing in growing numbers with extremely rare conditions, including Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) and pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP).
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NYU/Bellevue oncologist Linda Laubenstein, a polio survivor, specialized in treating AIDS patients at a time when many doctors refused. Laubenstein offended some in the gay community by campaigning to close the bathhouses, which she correctly saw as transmission points for the disease. Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, a searing account of gay life in New York City, includes a main character modeled upon Laubenstein—a wheelchair-bound physician devoted to AIDS care and safe sex for gay men.
In 1989, a thirty-three-year-old pregnant pathologist named Kathryn Hinnant was raped and murdered in her Bellevue office by a homeless man in stolen doctor’s scrubs who had been living in a machinery closet inside the hospital. Her death triggered an angry debate over security at Bellevue, which abutted the largest men’s homeless shelter in New York, as well as the hospital’s unique relationship with the city’s indigent population. Dr. Hinnant is buried in her native South Carolina.
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In the days after 9/11, the city was blanketed with notes and flyers seeking information about missing friends and family members. Makeshift message boards went up at Grand Central, Penn Station, the Port Authority, and dozens of other places. The largest one, stretching for several hundred yards along a construction fence at Bellevue Hospital, was named the Wall of Prayers. Bellevue abutted the Medical Examiner’s Office, where the identification of the 9/11 victims took place. The hospital had long been a gathering place for people seeking solace and information following a mass tragedy in New York City.
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The FDR Drive, situated between Bellevue and the East River, began to flood minutes after Superstorm Sandy reached Manhattan in 2012. Primary electrical power at Bellevue (left) and lower Manhattan would be lost minutes later, following an explosion at a flooded Con Edison substation.
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With no power and the basement fuel pumps flooded, dozens of volunteers—doctors, nurses, medical students, and Bellevue staffers—formed a human chain to haul five-gallon buckets of fuel up thirteen flights of stairs to the backup generators to keep the hospital functioning.
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As conditions rapidly deteriorated, a decision was made to evacuate the hospital. With the elevators out of commission, hundreds of patients had to be taken down the semidarkened stairwells—some attached to IVs and monitors, some hand-carried, and others on portable sleds. The National Guard played an essential role in the evacuation. All the patients got out safely.
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Dozens of ambulances lined the streets around Bellevue to transport patients to other facilities.
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Following Sandy, Bellevue closed its doors for the first time in its history.
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Bellevue staffers wore special protective clothing to treat the city’s lone Ebola patient in the fall of 2014.
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Dr. Laura Evans speaks at a celebratory press conference announcing the discharge of Ebola-free patient Dr. Craig Spencer, as Mayor Bill de Blasio (left) and Dr. Spencer (far right) look on.
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The glass-roofed Bellevue lobby designed by I. M. Pei, with the facade of old Bellevue on one side and four floors of outpatient clinics on the other.
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