Today: A rally to landmark the historic New York Eye and Ear Infirmary

Village Preservation, along with disabled advocacy groups, neighborhood organizations, local elected officials, and members of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary community, will hold a rally and press conference this morning at 11 to call on the city to designate the hospital's historic main building (above) as a landmark.

The future of the building and the hospital on the NE corner of Second Avenue and 13th Street has been in doubt since they were acquired by Mount Sinai Health System. (In 2013, following the merger of Continuum Health Partners, Inc. with The Mount Sinai Medical Center, the hospital was officially renamed the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai.) 

As organizers previously noted: 

In late 2022, Mount Sinai Beth-Israel, the parent corporation of the 200-year-old New York Eye and Ear Infirmary that serves people with hearing and vision disabilities, applied before the Public Health and Health Planning Council to merge operating certificates with the Infirmary — a tactic that would enable MSBI to more easily move services out of the site and around the city, paving the way for a sale of the historic Infirmary. 

The Infirmary owns two buildings here — 14th Street and Second Avenue and 13th Street and Second Avenue — and the vacant lot on 13th Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue. 

Real-estate insiders have said the parcel could fetch upwards of $70 million for some new development. 

Those gathered today will call for preserving the hospital, said to be the oldest specialized hospital in the Western Hemisphere, and its historic building, the ribbon cutting for which was performed by Hellen Keller. 

Another piece of trivia: The building on Second Avenue and 13th Street served as a setting in "The Godfather," in which Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) moves his father's hospital bed, saving him from a possible assassination attempt...