Mount Sinai West (St. Luke's - Roosevelt) Hospital
St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital occupies most of the block south of 59th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues. The hospital center was created in 1979 with the merger of three hospitals: St. Luke's (founded 1846), Women's Hospital (founded 1855) and Roosevelt Hospital (founded 1871). In 1997 St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center entered into partnership with Beth Israel Medical Center, forming Continuum Health Partners. Continuum merge with Mount Sinai Hospital in 2013 and the hospital became known as Mount Sinai West in 2015.
The William J. Syms Operating Theatre was a surgical building added to Roosevelt Hospital in 1892. The Romanesque building was designed by W. Wheeler Smith and named after the retired gun merchant who (turning swords to scalpals) paid for it. The building was dominated by a large operating room surrounded by semicircular tiers containing 184 seats for medical students (hence, the name theatre). The building was converted to offices in 1941 and the entire Columbus Avenue frontage was sold to a developer in the late 1980s.
The SYMS Operating Theatre should not be confused with J. Marion SIMS, who was a surgeon at St. Luke's Hospital and is considered the father of modern gynecology. He was notable for performing the first successful repair of a vaginal fistula following childbirth in 1849, but also notorious for developing the technique by practicing on slaves.
425 West 59th Street is an apartment building for St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital
925 Ninth Avenue - The William Syms Operating Theatre (1891)
925 Ninth Avenue - The William Syms Operating Theatre (1891)
425 West 59th Street
425 West 59th Street