NYC's St. Vincent's Hospital To Close

The Board of Directors of St. Vincent’s – NYC’s last Catholic hospital – voted to shut down operations last night after 160 years due to financial insolvency caused by crushing debt. St. Vincent’s had a fabled history in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan – treating everyone from survivors of the Titanic to many of the East Coast’s earliest AIDS patients.

When I first moved to NYC I lived in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. But I had no idea where any Brooklyn hospitals were located, so when I got sick I took the subway to the Village and went to the emergency room of St. Vincent’s.  St. Vincent’s was also the hospital where my friend Bill died of old age and lung disease – after our harrowing 4-block trip with me riding in the back of a St. Vincent’s ambulance.

I also remember passing by St. Vincent’s on September 11th, 2001 – and wrote about it in my 9/11 remembrance post:

One of my most vivid memories of that day is walking past St. Vincent's hospital - which is a huge hospital and trauma center located a few blocks north of the restaurant. They were in "emergency mode" - with doctors, nurses, etc., posted outside to take care of the incoming wounded. And they were all just standing around, waiting for people who never came. Unreal.

With the closing of St. Clare’s hospital a few years ago (which was conveniently located around the corner from my apartment), the West Side of Manhattan is left with only one Hospital – St. Luke’s-Roosevelt on the Upper West Side.