St. Luke's Hospital, 1904.

In 1896, St. Luke's Hospital (founded in 1858 on Fifth Avenue at 54th Street) moved uptown. Ernest Flagg designed the grand hospital at the start of his career. The French Renaissance style complex was to have nine five-story, mansard-roofed pavilions connected to a central building topped by an impressive dome. Construction began in 1896 and continued for more than two decades.

Only seven of the nine planned pavilions were built, and four remain today. The dome was removed in the 1960s and over time architectural details have been lost, while the complex has been crowded in by the modern Stuyvesant Pavilion on its west side. In the early 1990s, the deteriorating marble cornice was removed and replaced with a concrete/fiberglass replica. The four remaining pavilions were either empty or administrative and doctors’ offices before the buildings were sold in 2016. They are currently undergoing construction as part of a luxury residential conversion with the preservation of both the exterior and some historical elements of the interior structure included. The work is planned to be completed by the end of 2019.