6. Triboro Hospital for Tuberculosis
The Triboro Hospital for Tuberculosis in Jamaica, Queens, operated as a tuberculosis sanatorium and later a general hospital from 1941 until the early 2000s. The hospital, housed in what is now called the “T Building,” was converted into a general hospital in the 1970s and earlier merged with the adjacent Queens General Hospital in the 1950s. The new Queens Hospital Center opened in 2001, and the T Building has since been the location of administrative offices and storage by the Queens Hospital Center.
The eleven-story Art Moderne-style building was completed in 1941, six years after the opening of the QHS in 1935. Immediately after opening, tuberculosis patients from nearby hospitals were transferred to Triboro Hospital for treatment. Mayor LaGuardia noted during the cornerstone ceremony that the building should be considered “the Hospital of Mistakes of the Past” due to New York’s high prevalence of tuberculosis. Following the tuberculosis outbreaks, Triboro Hospital merged with Queens General and Queensboro Hospital into QHS. By the 1970s, however, many of Triboro’s facilities were outdated and in violation of modern health codes, and by the 1990s, four buildings on QHS’s campus were demolished once QHS decided to move.
A drug rehabilitation program called “It’s Never Too Late” opened in the Triboro Building, but since the early 2000s, the city sought to sell or redevelop the Triboro Building into housing communities. A project called Skyline Commons, a retirement community that would open in the building, was approved in 2007 but was cancelled in 2009 during the economic recession. The New York City Council approved plans in 2018 to renovate Triboro Hospital for affordable housing, and the hospital was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.