Story
The Floating Hospital
The Floating Hospital began in 1866 as a series of charitable summer excursions, organized by the New York Times, for the benefit of newsboys and the needy, to escape the smoggy, sweltering city. Around 1873 the St. John's Guild took over the organization of the trips, and in 1875, the guild purchased and outfitted its first vessel named the Emma Abbot. Two years later the hospital officially became "The Floating Hospital”.
- All photos courtesy of the Floating Hospital
Twelfth Avenue and West 34th Street
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First Avenue and East 29th Street
The Floating Hospital toured the East and Hudson Rivers, with cruises around the harbor in the summertime, and dockside service in the winter. Here patients line up to board The Floating Hospital.
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Pier 11
Nurses and doctors are seen checking patients on the pier as patients wait in line to board the Floating Hospital.
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Floating Hospital - Upper New York Bay
Doctors and nurses were onboard to address medical concerns and to teach passengers about health and hygiene.
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Floating Hospital - New York Harbor
Underserved children and their mothers from crowded tenements could get quality food – especially milk, which was notoriously rotten and adulterated in many poor neighborhoods.
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Floating Hospital - Upper New York Bay
Passengers could get a check-up, a bath, and healthful sea air - making a trip to the doctor feel like a day at the beach.
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Floating Hospital - Upper New York Bay
Children enjoying entertainment aboard the Floating Hospital.
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Seaside Hospital
Realizing that some especially ill children needed more than a day of medical care on the water, in 1881 the St. John’s Guild founded the Seaside Hospital on ten acres of Atlantic Ocean beach front in New Dorp, Staten Island. It served as a children's hospital until WWII.
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Seaside Hospital
The Floating Hospital children are seen here on the beach at Seaside Hospital playing "Simon Says".
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Manhattan Bridge
The Floating Hospital boats were still in use as clinics and health centers until 2002, usually moored at piers in lower Manhattan. No longer able to find a suitable and safe pier for patients to board the boat, in 2003 the Hospital sold its last vessel, the Lila Acheson Wallace, and became a land-based facility. By 2006 The Floating Hospital moved to its present headquarters in Long Island City, Queens, where they still carry out the mission of fulfilling the medical needs of underserved populations.
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