4. The Brooklyn Navy Yard Hospital Annex

The Brooklyn Navy Yard Naval Hospital Annex — or the Naval Annex — was built from 1830 to 1836. It was active from the Civil War, during which it supplied almost a third of the medicine distributed to Union soldiers, and through both World Wars. The hospital is also notable for employing some of the first female nurses and medical students. Dr. E. R. Squibb, the leading pharmaceutics inventor and part-name sake of the pharmaceutics company Bristol-Myers Squibb, developed the first anesthetic ethers for use in surgery.

By the 1970s, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Naval Hospital Annex was decommissioned. Today, it is one of the few original buildings that remain at the Navy Yard. Steiner Studios, a major anchor tenant there, is working on transforming the space into a 420,000-square-foot media campus by 2027. Compared to Ellis Island‘s abandoned hospital complex, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Naval Hospital Annex is less well-traveled. Other abandoned hospitals across New York City include the Roosevelt Island Smallpox Hospital and Seaview Hospital on Staten Island.