Digital Rendering Courtesy Synoesis Visualization Studio, synoesis.com

A Fitting Memorial Site

Roosevelt Island, New York City

Courtesy Touhey Photography, metouhey.com

The Smallpox Hospital is uniquely meaningful site for a public health memorial. If permanently stabilized and landscaped for public access, its waterfront tranquility and historic relevance promise a place to remember our country’s incredible efforts around public health.

Location

The Ruin sits on Roosevelt Island, south of Cornell Technion and immediately north of FDR Four Freedoms State Park. It is within the shadow of the United Nations and World Health Organization.

A Landmark’s History

Designed by renowned architect James Renwick, Jr., the building once served as a hospital for a devastating pandemic and as a nursing school for the frontlines. It is hard to imagine a more fitting site to memorialize those we lost to diseases like COVID-19 as well as the scientific advances and the frontline workers fighting viral and infectious disease.

The gothic structure is our country’s only landmark ruin. It is registered as a federal, state and city landmark.

Accessibility

The Ruin is easily accessible from three international airports, as well as Manhattan and Queens. Major transportation options also include tram, subway, ferry, bus, and car.

A Garden Among Ruins: Space for Reflection

Today, the interior of the Ruin has no roof or floor slabs. Sunlit, open interiors allow for a sensitive landscape, art, or architectural intervention to honor our scientist, heroes and those we have lost to viral and infectious disease. Once completed, the proposed memorial will be free and open to the public year-round.

Donate

It is the generosity of people like you that will breathe life into this magnificent Ruin to create a place of reflection and memorialization for years to come. Your tax-deductible gift makes everything possible. Please contribute to our efforts here.