A place built for a disease now eradicated.

Roosevelt Island, New York City

The Smallpox Hospital was built in response to a public health crisis. Its history follows the changing ways New York treated, contained, and eventually eradicated disease. Today, the building is a ruin, fenced off and closed to the public.

Friends of the Ruin is working to stabilize the building, restore its landscape, and make the site accessible to the public.

Courtesy Touhey Photography, metouhey.com

THE DISEASE & THE ISLAND

Smallpox killed three in ten people who contracted it, most of them children. Cities responded with quarantine and isolation — New York built this hospital, at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, because the disease demanded a place apart. From the ruin, the United Nations stands directly across the East River.

THE BUILDING & ITS ARCHITECT

Designed by James Renwick Jr., the hospital opened in 1856 to treat and isolate smallpox patients. Renwick was then the state's own architect for its Commission of Charities and Correction, the agency overseeing New York's public hospitals; he later designed St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Smithsonian Institution Building. In 1886 the building became a nurses' training school, and by the 1950s it stood empty. It is now a New York City Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

ERADICATION

In 1796, Edward Jenner discovered the first vaccine, but it took nearly two centuries to finish the job. In 1967, the World Health Organization launched a global campaign to eliminate smallpox, tracking outbreaks one at a time; the last natural case was found in Somalia in 1977. In 1980, smallpox was declared eradicated, the only human disease ever eliminated by deliberate effort.

Imagine walking into it.

Digital Rendering Courtesy Synoesis Visualization Studio, synoesis.com

The Smallpox Hospital is fenced off and cannot be entered today. The proposed work would repair the structure and its grounds, opening the site to the public for the first time since the 1950s.

What could happen next?

The building would remain a ruin. No new building would occupy it. The public would be able to walk through the existing structure and experience the landscape within and around it.

Donate

Friends of the Ruin is working to raise the funds necessary to stabilize the Smallpox Hospital, restore its landscape, and reopen the site to the public. Your support will help stabilize the building, restore the landscape, and reopen the site to the public. Please contribute to our efforts here.