RAND’s Yuni Song and Suzanna Takayama, RA with the Floating Hospital’s Chief Medical Officer Shani Andre, MD (center).
In 1866, New York City’s first charity pediatric clinic began as a ship docked in lower Manhattan. It was the start of a series of vessels and barges that took poor immigrant children and their parents away from the unsanitary conditions of cramped tenements for day outings on the water. While aboard the ship, they received medical care, food, and clothing. For many of these indigent families it was the only medical treatment available to them.
These ships came to be known as The Floating Hospital, and they served as a mobile health clinic for those afflicted with cholera, smallpox, and other diseases. Later on it expanded its services as a retreat and entertainment venue for children, the elderly, and the disabled for most of the 20th century.
The Floating Hospital no longer floats: The ship was moored to a pier along Wall Street in 1980 until the terrorist attacks on September 11, and it now has a home on terra firma at two locations in Long Island City. One of the locations serves the 7,000 residents of the 26-building Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing complex in the country. RAND had the privilege of serving as the Engineer and Architect of Record for the build-out of that facility.
As a proud supporter of The Floating Hospital, RAND was on hand for its 150th anniversary celebration Monday night at Chelsea Piers. In a century and a half, the organization has served more than 5 million underprivileged New Yorkers, many of them homeless or living in the city’s shelter system. We look forward to our continued partnership with The Floating Hospital as it carries on its historic legacy as “Family Doctor to New York City Families in Need.”
Michael Langwell is a Project Associate on RAND’s Architectural Team.
