In announcing plans
to shutter the Mount Sinai Beth Israel campus on First Avenue and 16th Street in the coming years, officials said this past spring that they'd open a smaller, 70-bed facility on 14th Street and Second Avenue. (Mount Sinai plans to sell the 16th Street property, which is valued at about $600 million.)
Per a news release issued in May:
Central to the downtown transformation is the new, smaller Mount Sinai Downtown Beth Israel Hospital, which will include approximately 70 beds and a brand new state-of-the-art Emergency Department (ED), located at 14th Street near Second Avenue — just two blocks south of the current Beth Israel campus. This ED will accept ambulances and will be able to handle all emergencies, such as heart attack, and stroke, on site. It will also include a pediatric ED. Patients with the most complex conditions will be stabilized and transported to other hospitals in the Mount Sinai Health System.
Officials have yet to divulge the full plans as to where all this will be housed. Here's one clue: On Monday, the DOB ok'd
demolition permits for 321 E. 13th St., a 14-floor building (
top photo) between Second Avenue and First Avenue that houses training physicians and staff of the nearby New York Eye and Ear Infirmary.
DNAinfo,
who first reported on the demolition yesterday, has the story of one of the building's residents, Billy Ortiz, a disabled former hospital employee who requires frequent dialysis treatments. Ortiz and several other residents, including some longtime nurses, say they are struggling to meet the deadline to vacate No. 321.
A hospital rep declined to specify what will be taking the place of the East 13th Street residence, DNAinfo noted.
It's also unclear how other buildings in the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai complex, such as 218 Second Ave. (
below), might be impacted by the new facility.
Previously