From the Queens Chronicle:Mt. Sinai Hospital will double its capacity and more than triple its emergency room space, if a proposed expansion comes to fruition.
Administrators at the Astoria medical center, located on 30th Avenue, hope to build a nine-story annex in the empty lot behind the existing facility. With the new tower, the hospital would have 265 beds, up from 192, more than 10,000 square feet of additional ER space, five new operating rooms and an ambulance drop-off.
Caryn Schwab, the hospital’s executive director, said the expansion is badly needed because the borough’s hospitals are stretched too thin.
Money is the sticking point. The annex is expected to cost $200 million, and Schwab said the hospital is $75 million short. Bonds and equity contributions from the main Mt. Sinai hospital in Manhattan are expected to yield $125 million for the project, but the medical center is turning to the state for additional funding. She added that federal stimulus funding can’t be deployed for hospital construction.
If the state doesn’t pony up $75 million, Schwab said the medical center will likely build a smaller annex that can be expanded later. Administrators expect to make construction decisions within the next three to six months.
20 comments:
Typical Astoria bullshit. The area is congested already - a 9 story addition is impossible.
Now 21st Street would be a great area but we all know that is slated for development and a hospital serving the community would interrupt those juicy plans.
Cash shortage? How about a developer's tax - you know - if they keep adding to a community with inadequate sewers, schools, and a shaky power grid (yet still pencil in juicy barbeques with the local pols on their busy calander) perhaps they want to give something back to the community instead of sucking everything they can from good old Astoria.
But no, if the locals are too clueless to fight development, why should the suckers get an even break.
Oh, one final juicy tidbit. Western Queens has 4 closed hospitals in the past 40 years. This would add about half of what was lost .... to a population easily twice as large - and will be four or five times as large once the local talent succeeds in convincing the locals to sell out for a song.
Time to reopen a few of the closed hospitals.
There should have been more than Mt.Sinai fifteen year ago in Astoria for a hospital instead of small clinics.
Mount Sinai on 30th ave is a nasty dirty facility and always has been.
But no, if the locals are too clueless to fight development, why should the suckers get an even break.
Most of the locals in Astoria these days are either immigrants that don't speak english and don't care about the congestion because it's still less congested than the nasty slum they came from, or else they're clueless hipsters that think overdevelopment is kewl because now more of their hipster friends can move to fantastic Astoria.
I had never experienced this before but lately I would get asked for spare change from people coming out of the hospital. I guess most of them were emergency cases and had no money when picked up. When I asked, most of them stated they came from Woodhaven, Maspeth or Flushing.
Sure Queens need more hospitals but putting more money into Mount Sinai Queens is foolish. They can name Astoria General whatever they want this hospital will never shake it reputation as a death trap. Unless they get serious about actual medical care for the community instead of expansion plans.
@ Anonymous who wanted to build a hospital on 21st Street.
Where do you think is a good area on 21st Street? This street is bad enough with congestion from 7:30 am to 9am. Traffic is backed up from the Queensboro bridge all the way to the Sanitation Depot at these times. The truck traffic has increased recently too, it is like a mini earthquake every time a truck passes. The impact of a hospital here would make a bad situation worse.
@ Anonymous who wanted to build a hospital on 21st Street.
Where do you think is a good area on 21st Street? This street is bad enough with congestion from 7:30 am to 9am. Traffic is backed up from the Queensboro bridge all the way to the Sanitation Depot at these times. The truck traffic has increased recently too, it is like a mini earthquake every time a truck passes. The impact of a hospital here would make a bad situation worse.
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21st Street is a swamp filled with 19th century rubbish and dead horses.
I know a person that bought property near the HS and they had all of 6 inches of dirt.
But ask the Valloones, City Planning, Mike 'Mystery Man' Gianaris and the Community Board.
They are planning massive development on that street with very big buildings planned.
Its a hell of a lot wider than than the streets around Astoria General which are already congested - and a great place for the Tower People in HP to shoot up when they have thier first kid before they move out to the suburbs.
well I ended up in that ER last month. to make a long story short, the ER is tiny and claustrophobic. Great people working there.
What's wrong with Queens Blvd and Woodhaven Blvd? Site of the former St John's Hospital.
That property on Queens Blvd is meant for better uses like a shopping mall or office space. A few years ago Lyden Nursing Home which is across the street from Astoria General closed. Why didn't Mount Sinai or the previous administrators of this Hospital take the space over. Instead of reusing a building they would rather expand and build new facilities.
Queens needs Hospitals and Mt. Sinai is one of the best.
Reading the previous posts I realize that my neighbors are idiots and you make me embarrased to be from Queens.
Queens needs Hospitals and Mt. Sinai is one of the best.
Reading the previous posts I realize that my neighbors are idiots and you make me embarrased to be from Queens.
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alas my friend, announcements like this from your ilk are no longer believed by most people.
the old days are gone my friend and only in little backward pockets like astoria can you find it even spoken ... .
Most of the locals in Astoria these days are either immigrants that don't speak english and don't care about the congestion because it's still less congested than the nasty slum they came from, or else they're clueless hipsters that think overdevelopment is kewl because now more of their hipster friends can move to fantastic Astoria.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Did you think when you wrote that at all? Ive lived here quite a while and the people I know that moved here three or four years ago dont like overdevelopment,didnt vote for bloomberg the Republican(no difference between dems and Republicans here) and live in buildings that are older being built most likey 80 years ago at least.
I get the feeling that some of you folks think anybody not from here is a hipster and it makes you sound completely ignorant because many of them know political history beyond your myopic view that revolves around NY.
Bloomberg and Guliani are laughing stalks outside of this state.
But back to the fact that Mt Sinai is way too small, run very unprofessionally, and real dirty. From what I hear its been that way since the early 80's. Most cities have three hospitals in that range and population compared to Astoria & LIC.
alas my friend, announcements like this from your ilk are no longer believed by most people.
the old days are gone my friend and only in little backward pockets like astoria can you find it even spoken ...
What the fuck are you talking about?
What the fuck are you talking about?
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Astoria. Laughing. Stock. Backwater.
Do we have to drive it home?
PS Keep your politicans and developers in your own backyard - no one else wants them.
Did you think when you wrote that at all? Ive lived here quite a while and the people I know that moved here three or four years ago dont like overdevelopment,didnt vote for bloomberg the Republican(no difference between dems and Republicans here) and live in buildings that are older being built most likey 80 years ago at least.
I get the feeling that some of you folks think anybody not from here is a hipster and it makes you sound completely ignorant because many of them know political history beyond your myopic view that revolves around NY.
Bloomberg and Guliani are laughing stalks outside of this state.
But back to the fact that Mt Sinai is way too small, run very unprofessionally, and real dirty. From what I hear its been that way since the early 80's. Most cities have three hospitals in that range and population compared to Astoria & LIC.
Oh shocker! Someone who just moved to Asstoria (yes, three or four years ago does not make you an Astorian) touting the wonders of Astoria and singing how the downfall of Astoria isn't their fault.
I lived in Astoria for 31 years, my father was born at Astoria General, and my Grandmother was born in a little house on Crescent Street. I know of what I speak when I speak of Astoria. It's newcomers like you and your hispter friends that made the place popular so that it had no choice to be overdeveloped. If you build it, they will come. And come you assholes did.
Sure, the newbies elected Vallone, sold out the 150 year old mansions in Old Astoria to developers, and get together in various unnamed groups within the community to spend endless hours defending their right to sell out and crap over their neighbors, or cram as many people into the old homestead as they can.
These people has as much civic pride as a mayfly has thoughs of retirement.
Does this count as a hipster helping Vallone get re-elected? The founder just moved here 4 years ago.
http://www.whyleaveastoria.com/group/reelectpeterfvallonejrnyccouncil
I lived in Astoria for 31 years, my father was born at Astoria General, and my Grandmother was born in a little house on Crescent Street. I know of what I speak when I speak of Astoria. It's newcomers like you and your hispter friends that made the place popular so that it had no choice to be overdeveloped. If you build it, they will come. And come you assholes did.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Im not a newcomer there guy so Im not sure what your ranting about since there is big vacancies in buildings that have been built 80 plus years ago that I live in and others from Astoria that are friendly neighbors and a few that moved here four years ago that by no means are hipsters.
Do you mean the well to do kids from the east coast that go to the fashion Institute or work at Kaufman Astoria studios? Those are not hipsters.
And those upper class garbage condos by 21st and Vernon are being lived in by developers from here, Astoria, as well as yuppie folks who had lived in Manhattan most of their life, and other well to do east coast apathetic people.
But again with the population in Astoria in the late 1980's why was there only one major hospital?
Administrators at the Astoria medical center, located on 30th Avenue, hope to build a nine-story annex in the empty lot behind the existing facility.
Empty lot? WHAT empty lot?
This hospital is sub-par. The doctors have bad tempers, and one of nurses makes Nurse Ratchet from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest look like a saint. Thank goodness not all of them are like that. I actually witnessed a doctor losing his temper with an old man whose sister had been taken in. Clearly, the man was upset, and the doctor, with his fancy medical degree, should have known better. First do no harm! Remember your Hippocratic oath. It's ironic, because some of these doctors, including the one who lost his temper, are Greek.
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