Bellevue Hospital
Bellevue Hospital (officially NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue and formerly known as Bellevue Hospital Center) is a hospital in New York City and the oldest public hospital in the United States.[2][4] One of the largest hospitals in the United States by number of beds, it is located at 462 First Avenue in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Bellevue is also home to FDNY EMS Station 08, formerly NYC EMS Station 13.
"Bellevue Hospital Center" redirects here. For the hospital in Lebanon, see Bellevue Medical Center.Bellevue Hospital
462 First Avenue, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States
844 (2015)[3]
East 34th Street Heliport (IATA: TSS)
March 31, 1736 [2]
Historically, Bellevue was so frequently associated with its treatment of mentally ill patients that "Bellevue" became a local pejorative slang term for a psychiatric hospital. The hospital has since developed into a comprehensive major medical center including outpatient, specialty, and skilled nursing care, as well as emergency and inpatient services. The hospital contains a 25-story patient care facility and has an attending physician staff of 1,200 and an in-house staff of about 5,500.
Bellevue is a safety net hospital, providing healthcare for individuals regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay. It handles over half a million patient visits each year.[3]
In popular culture[edit]
Bellevue has entered popular consciousness through its status as a major hospital in the largest city in the United States. The hospital notably treated the author Norman Mailer, who was taken to Bellevue after he stabbed his wife; and Mark David Chapman, who shuttled between Bellevue and the jail complex on Rikers Island after he shot and killed musician John Lennon. The poet Allen Ginsberg, also a former patient, mentioned the hospital by name in his famous poem "Howl" (1955).[24][4]
Bellevue has been the subject of books, including Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital (2016), by historian David Oshinsky,[24] Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital (2012), by Eric Manheimer, a former Bellevue medical director,[25] and Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue (2002), by Danielle Ofri, a long-time physician at Bellevue.[26]
The 2018 NBC television series New Amsterdam takes place at a fictionalized version of Bellevue, renamed "New Amsterdam" in the show. Based on Manheimer's book, the series has filmed scenes at Bellevue and other New York City public hospitals.[25]