In 2000, Bellevue Hospital Center—the city’s oldest hospital, established in 1794 in the hinterlands of the city along First Avenue and 28th Street—decided to build a new Ambulatory Care Pavilion.
The I.M. Pei-designed pavilion has been open since 2005. It’s a gleaming modern glass atrium, the kind seen on office buildings and institutions all over the city.
But inside this atrium remains a curious piece of the hospital’s past.
The far wall of the atrium is actually the facade of an older Bellevue building.
It’s the granite and brick front of the 1930s administrative building built by McKim, Mead & White.
It’s nicely preserved and pretty impressive. Above what was the main hospital entrance facing First Avenue is a version of the official city seal.
Smaller entryways marked “waiting room” and “employes” also remain, as well as a gas lantern from the 1880s.
It’s always inspiring to see an old facade spared the wrecking ball and incorporated into a new structure.
Check out a few recent examples: a church-turned-NYU-dorm and a condo springing up from inside the shell of an old elementary school.
