Building Histories, The Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital and the Rivington Street Bath

In last week’s blog, Amy Stecher adapted her “Lunch and Learn” presentation about the Manhattan Building Plan collection project. This week, co-presenter Alexandra Hilton highlights two architecturally significant buildings documented in the collection – the Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital and the Rivington Street Bath. Future blogs will feature the plans of other unique buildings that have been identified in the processing project.

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Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital

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Psychopathic Building, Bellevue and Allied Hospitals, architects’ rendering, 1927. Department of Public Charities and Hospitals Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital, as it was called at the time, was built in 1931 by Charles B. Meyers in the Italian Renaissance style. The building is still standing alongside the East River on First Avenue between 29th and 30th Streets, occupying an entire city block. When constructed, it joined the growing Bellevue hospital complex, and was intended to match the existing buildings, which were designed by architects McKim, Mead & White – same color brick, embellished with granite base course, limestone and terra cotta trimmings. By then, McKim, Mead & White was barely active; Meyers had just designed the Tammany Hall building and was a favorite of then-Mayor Jimmy Walker.

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Manhattan Block 958. Bromley Atlas, 1955. New York Public Library.

Prior to its construction, Bellevue’s mental-health facilities were part of the main hospital and included an 1879 “pavilion for the insane,” and an alcoholic ward was added in 1892. Dr. Menas Gregory, a well-known psychiatrist who spent his career working in Bellevue’s psychiatric division, is credited with the idea for a psychiatric building after a trip to inspect similar institutions in Europe – a “Temple of Mental Health,” as he called it. Wanting to create a very clean and stately environment for the new hospital was right on brand for Dr. Gregory. In his position, he had already changed the terminology – preferring “psychopathic” to the word “insane,” thinking this would help make the patients seem curable. He had also removed the iron bars from the old pavilion’s windows and had lessened the use of narcotics and physical restraints on the patients. Dr. Gregory was seen as a good guy in the field, at a time when most medical professionals were largely ignorant about mental illness.

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Psychopathic Hospital, Department of Hospitals, Charles B. Meyers, elevation, 1929, blueprint. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Before the hospital was built, The New York Times said it would be “one of the finest hospitals in the world for the treatment of mental disorders” and “thoroughly modern” at a cost of $3,000,000. (Unsurprisingly, by the time it was finished, the cost would be $4,300,000 ($66,000,000 today). It was designed as a single building with three separate units: 1) 10-stories to house administrative services, doctors’ offices, labs and a library; 2) 8-stories, for mild cases; 3) 8-stories, for more advanced cases. There were facilities for recreation and occupational therapy; physio-, electro- and hydro-therapy; an out-patient clinic; teaching facilities for medical students, and a special research clinic for the study and treatment of delinquency, crime and behavior problems, in collaboration with the Department of Correction, Criminal Courts and Probation Bureau.

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Bellevue Hospital complex with new psychopathic building at right, October 31, 1934. Borough President Manhattan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Rooms were designed to house either one, two or three patients at a time. In a Mental Hygiene Bulletin, it was written that “special consideration has been given in the plans to incorporate within the building the appearance and aspect of home or normal living conditions with simple decorations and color tones believed to have the most soothing effect upon the patient.” One hundred of the six hundred beds were dedicated for the study and treatment of children, under the supervision of the Department of Education. 

Completing the building was nothing short of dramatic and filled with accusations of corruption and mismanagement. Its lavish exterior juxtaposed against the great depression couldn’t have been more tone deaf to the city’s residents. When ground was broken on June 18, 1930, it was thought the building would be completed at the end of 1931. Almost a year later, in February 1931, the cornerstone was just being laid. Delays were plentiful. It reportedly took a year to choose the architect and another year to draw the plans, and then, according to the Acting Commissioner of Hospitals, “after the contractor had collected all the funds he could get, he left for Europe.” 

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Psychopathic Hospital, Department of Hospitals, Charles B. Meyers, first floor plan, 1929, blueprint. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital, Manhattan Block 958, Lot 1, 1940. Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The hospital partially opened in May 1933 with the 600-bed facility only ready for 375 patients. A formal dedication occurred later that year in November, where tribute was paid to Dr. Gregory for his vision. Dr. Gregory resigned from his post in 1934, amid an investigation of his division by the Commissioner of Hospitals, Dr. S. S. Goldwater. This formed a spectacular tit-for-tat-type relationship between Dr. Gregory and Dr. Goldwater, which The New York Times covered extensively. Dr. Gregory died in 1941.

Over the years, the building went from temple of health to a scary place you didn’t want to go, and was the subject of many films, novels and exposes. The hospital saw many celebrity patients. Norman Mailer was sent there after stabbing his wife in a drunken rage. William Burroughs after he chopped off his own finger to impress someone. Eugene O’Neill had several stays in the alcoholic ward. Sylvia Plath came after a nervous breakdown. And infamous criminals like George Metesky the “Mad Bomber,” and John Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman, were briefly committed to the hospital. 

In 1984, the city began transitioning the building into a homeless shelter and intake center, but much of it was left empty. Around 2008, a proposal to turn the building into a hotel surfaced. To developers, the building was naturally suited to such a use, given the H-shaped layout with long hallways and small rooms.

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Rivington Baths

The Rivington Street Bath House at 326 Rivington Street, later renamed the Baruch Bath House, was the first in the city to be built with public funds. The ground-breaking for the bathhouse took place in December 1897; it opened on March 23, 1901. 

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Public Bath Building, Rivington Street, Cady, Berg & See, South Elevation, 1897, ink on linen. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Architects Cady, Berg & See designed the large, neoclassical building. They had become the go-to designers for municipal bath houses after the success of the People’s Bath, a public bath that had been privately funded by the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor (the AICP). The People’s Bath opened in 1891 at 9 Centre Market Place, near Broome Street, on the block where the old Police Headquarters building still stands. The architects and Dr. Simon Baruch, regarded as the “father of the public bath movement in the United States,” were keen on German design and their widespread use of showers – which, at the time, were referred to as rain baths or ring showers because of the circular shower head, designed to keep hair dry. The Germans were using showers for mass bathing situations, such as in military barracks. Showers were cheaper to build, easier to keep clean, used less water and could get people in and out faster, and became the staple of bathhouses.

Dr. Simon Baruch, who the Rivington Street Bathhouse was eventually named after, emigrated from Germany to South Carolina when he was a teenager. He studied medicine and joined the Civil War as a surgeon on the confederate side. Captured at the Battle of Gettysburg, he was held as a prisoner of war for the duration of the conflict. He made his way to New York City in 1881, served as a physician on the Lower East Side, and achieved prominence in the New York medical field.

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Manhattan Block 324, 1891, Bromley Atlas, New York Public Library

Dr. Baruch began advocating for public bathhouses in 1889. He was big on hydrotherapy, at the time a new concept in the United States, and this guided many of his endeavors. Municipal officials weren’t as sold on this concept that poor sanitation would equal poor physical health, but Baruch was tireless in promoting the utility of water and importance of a public bath system. For some reason, he was in the minority – even though in 1894, only 306 out of 255,000 tenements in New York City had bathtubs. “The people won’t bathe,” said then-Mayor Hugh Grant. But by 1895, Baruch finally convinced the State Legislature to pass a law that mandated cities with a population greater than 50,000 to establish and maintain free bath facilities.

Logistics around the new bath law and facilitation of public bathhouses caused some lag. One of the hiccups concerned their locations. Tompkins Square Park on the Lower East Side, then a predominantly German and Irish neighborhood, had been chosen as the location for the first bath. The residents couldn’t have been less thrilled by this prospect.  They did not want to be living in the community thought to be so poor that they needed a public bath. Essentially, they said it should go to the newer Jewish and Italian immigrant communities, located further south. And they did not want the bathhouse to take away from their already too-little park space. Their opposition was heard; Tompkins Square was no longer a contender. There was also a question of whether public baths even had to be located in parks; the mayor and his committee on public baths thought it did; Baruch said they did not. Somehow, they came over to Baruch’s side and the spot on Rivington Street, already owned by the city, was chosen.

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Public Bath Building, Rivington Street, Cady, Berg & See, First floor plan; showers and waiting area for men and women, 1897, ink on linen. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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Public Bath Building, Rivington Street, Cady, Berg & See, Longitudinal section, baths on upper floors, 1897, ink on linen.  Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives. 

The style of the Rivington Street Bathhouse influenced the style of subsequently built baths in the city. William Paul Gerhard, author of Modern Baths and Bath Houses (1908), said that the exterior of a people’s bath – or public bath – should be easily recognizable so it would be easily found. But he also warned that it shouldn’t be so lavish that the poor wouldn’t want to come. The Rivington Street bath design wasn’t exactly modest and met criticism for its extravagance and cost—eventually totaling more than $95,000 ($2,995,000 in today’s dollars). Of course, after its immediate success, the AICP recommended that another 16 bathhouses be built to the same specifications, saying it was actually more economical to build (cost less per shower compartment) and to maintain for the long haul. They aimed for the ancient Roman public bath-look with classical pilasters, columns, arches and cornices, constructed with hefty materials like brick, terra cotta, stone marble and copper, and with ornamental iron work. Whatever its appearance, the bathing experience was pretty much the same throughout the city’s bathhouses. 

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Public Bath Building, Rivington Street, Cady, Berg & See, Plumbing plan, 1897, ink on linen. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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Public Bath Building, Rivington Street, Cady, Berg & See, Longitudinal section, 1897, ink on linen. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

At Rivington Street, the three-and-a-half story building was divided into two spaces for a dedicated men’s and women’s area, each with a waiting room. The men’s area was about 2/3 of the building with 45 rain baths, or, showers; the women had 22. A handful of bathtubs were on the upper floors. Each bath cubicle was divided into two parts – a dressing area and a shower, separated by a curtain. When a patron entered the bathhouse, they were given a number, and then they would wait for their number to be called for the next available cubicle. They usually had 20 minutes to undress, bathe and redress – Rivington had the capacity to accommodate 3,000 bathers per day on this timetable. Attendants controlled the water temperature, which ranged between 73 to 105 degrees F, and the duration of the shower – I’m sure it will come to no surprise to learn that the attendants soon began running a scheme, where patrons could sneak them five cents for a limitless bath time. Eventually they got caught and were fired. Pools were later added to the complex in 1917.

Rivington Street Bath, Manhattan Block 324, Lot 36, 1940 Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

In 1939, Bernard Baruch, Dr. Baruch’s son, donated the land around the bathhouse to the city, and jurisdiction of the building went to the Parks Department. They renovated the bathhouse as a recreation center and added Baruch Playground. In the 1950s, the New York City Housing Authority built Baruch Houses, Manhattan’s largest public housing complex adjacent to the bathhouse. By 1975, the city’s fiscal crisis forced the facility to close, and has pretty much sat unused