I Was Born There

   Well, not actually.  I was born in the newer section but you know what I mean.  Sadly, after three decades of neglect and misplaced trust that "somebody" would do "something" to save it, the Smith Infirmary was demolished by the City earlier today.  The SILIVE has pictures and video.

   I'm a little disappointed with myself for never going back and getting some better, closeup pictures of the building but it sure ain't happening now.  So it goes.  I wonder how many poorly built townhouses they're going to fit on the property.
 

This is the end.... The Smith Infirmary's Days Are Numbered

As promised, here's some fresh off the digital camera shots of the gradually collapsing Smith Infirmary of the original Staten Island Hospital.

   Taken from Cebra and Rosewood

   This is the perspective I saw the Smith Infirmary from at least once a day for over thirty years of my life.  Closed for over thirty years, I can still picture it as an operating facility with doctors, nurses, aides and all sorts of maintenance workers.   The shops at the intersection of Victory and Cebra flourished because of the hospital.  There were Kohlmann's Florist, Matty's Barbershop, Precious Treasures Gifts, a jeweler's, a liquor store and several bars.  

   Over time those places went away and were replaced by decreasingly good delis, junk stores and Albanian pizzerias.  At least these days there's Dosa Garden (which I'm not sure I could actually recommend enough).

The Hole  - below, unseen, a great pile of 

fallen bricks cover the ground

  Brooding over it all is the crumbling hulk of the old hospital.  For years there were plans to renovate it and turn it into some sort of condo complex.  When I, in an early incarnation, worked for the city, I tried to uncover the insane web of ownership of the place for a potential investor.  

   In the end, after looking at deeds, plans, transaction records and talking to the Commissioner for Finance it all came to nothing.  One man claimed to own it but, even in order to save himself millions of dollars in delinquent taxes, couldn't.  

   Ultimately the investor decided it was not worth dipping into the deep pool of garbage that was the old Staten Island Hospital site.  I guessed the place would just deteriorate until it got so bad that the city's office of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) would simply take possession of the complex and bulldoze it.

   The was thirteen years ago and the place was still salvageable but nothing happened.  Since then, even when the city had money, no North Shore or borough politician stepped forward to invest money to at least stabilize the place.  Then the roofs of the back buildings (where I worked on my dentistry merit badge) collapsed and HPD had to demolish them.

   And it got worse and worse.  There was fake landlord who rented out units in the converted new building.  Then there were squatters.  Eventually HPD did a better job of sealing the newer buildings up for good but the infirmary and other remaining old building (I think a nursing school) just crumbled.

  And now I'm proven correct.  HPD owns it and according to the Advance, they're going to raze it.

   For many of the past thirty-two years this (the hospital's new building that was converted to housing, though it was allegedly a real estate scam) has looked pretty much like this.  Through five City Council Members (the only one I consider blameless is Debi Rose because by the time she got elected the damage was done), three Borough Presidents, four mayors, three State Assembly members, two Staten Senators, and six members of the House of Representatives.  Many of them were North Shore born and raised.  

It's a little late.

Smith Infirmary - all things must pass

   According to the Advance the other day, the old heart of the original Staten Island Hospital, the Smith Infirmary, is about to end its days.  After thirty years of neglect it's been deemed unsound and unsafe by HPD and the Buildings Dept.
   I am of mixed emotions about the matter.  It's sad that such a magnificent building has been allowed to go to ruin but then it is a dangerous site that could simply collapse.    
   The city did nothing to preserve it but then it really had no obligation to do so.  It was a piece of private property sold to a private developer.
   That the developer appears to have been a con artist and the condos actually built in the newer building were ultimately abandoned is not the city's fault either.
  If it goes, which is most likely, I'll miss it.  It's been part of my landscape my entire life (literally - I was born in the old hospital).  Growing up and living on Cebra Avenue most of my life its literally been in my line of sight more days than not.  One of my earliest posts was about the old hospital and my friends and my exploration of the abandoned complex.  But it's what happens.  We can document the past, even fetishize it, but we can't stop it from becoming the past.