Before the Great Influenza and COVID-19, the leading cause of death in many American cities was tuberculosis. In 1882, the pioneering German physician Dr. Robert Koch discovered tubercle bacillus – the bacteria that causes tuberculosis – creating public health awareness of it as a communicable disease. As significant as that discovery was, the cure to tuberculosis lay some 80 years in the future. The cure would come about thanks to the research and groundbreaking medical discoveries made at the now-abandoned Sea View Hospital on Staten Island.
At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, tuberculosis was a leading cause of death in New York City. Until then, the only prescribed cure for tuberculosis was ample fresh air, rest, and sun combined with a nutrient-rich diet. Thirty-seven buildings were constructed from 1905 to 1938 adjacent to the New York City Farm Colony on Staten Island to serve as the City’s new tuberculosis hospital. It was built upon the site of the former 25-acre hilltop estate of Charles Schmidt, called “Ocean View.” It is the second highest point on Staten Island, after Todt Hill. Upon the hospital’s grand opening in 1913, Sea View cost the City of New York $4,000,000 to construct ($111,000,000 today), making it the most costly municipal facility in the country for treating tuberculosis.
By the 1940s, Sea View Hospital was operating at full capacity and treating all forms of the disease including bone and glandular tuberculosis. It became the first tuberculosis hospital to establish a maternity ward. Many of the doctors on the Sea View staff garnered national and international reputations in the field of chest surgery and pioneered procedures such as correcting lung collapse.
After the antibiotic streptomycin was developed by Dr. Selman Waksman at Rutgers University in 1943, additional groundbreaking research was undertaken by Sea View’s Dr. Edward Robitzek and Dr. Irving J. Selikoff. Together, they conducted the first clinical trials with a synthetic compound called isoniazid which aided patients who had failed to respond to the treatments of streptomycin.
Sea View was phased out as a tuberculosis hospital in 1961 and evolved into a long-term rehabilitation and nursing care facility run by NYC Health + Hospitals. In 2018, plans were announced for a Wellness Community run by NYC EDC on the former hospitals sprawling campus. Sea View Hospital has been a popular filming location, appearing in shows like Gotham and Boardwalk Empire. Other buildings at the site have been adapted for new uses, while some parts sit abandoned and deteriorate. New York City Farm Colony and Sea View Hospital make up their own special landmarked historic district and the site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Decorative terra cotta mural made in Delft, Holland
