REPORT

OF

VISITATIONS OF ALMSHOUSES AND PUBLIC HOSPITALS IN THE FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT.

To the State Board of Charities:

During the calendar year 1909 I have visited all the municipal institutions of the city of New York situated in the First Judicial District.

Two of my visits to the hospitals on Blackwell's Island were made in company of Hon. Robert W. Hebberd, Commissioner of Public Charities of the city of New York, who had charge of these institutions. On one of these occasions it was my privilege to address a large and representative audience assembled in the new Nurses' Home of the Metropolitan Hospital to celebrate the opening of that handsome and useful addition to the hospital building. Par ticular attention was paid to the new buildings and the improvements made in the old ones. My official visits to the public charitable institutions of the city have now been made for nearly thirty

years.

Very gratifying progress has been made, not only in providing new and long needed buildings, but in the improvement of the old ones, and in the care and appearance of the grounds. The work of the City and Metropolitan Hospitals, although for the most part carried on in old buildings not erected in accordance with present day standards of hospital construction, is creditable to the city and more immediately to those directly responsible for the service. The appearance and discipline of the staff and employees of all grades are improved and show the results of greater care in appointments and a more constant and exacting official supervision.

These hospitals and the City Home for the Aged and other municipal institutions under the supervision of the Commissioner of Public Charities, and Bellevue and Allied Hospitals in the borough of Manhattan under the supervision of the Trustees of Bellevue and Allied Hospitals, have all been carefully inspected on my

direction by Mr. James H. Foster, an inspector of this Board, and digests of his reports upon these several institutions will be found appended hereto. Detailed copies of these reports have been filed at the office of the Board.

The discipline and order in the City Home for the Aged are less satisfactory than in the hospitals of the department, and the executive staff should be strengthened. The buildings are badly planned and can never be made suitable for modern almshouse use, and the grounds are too limited to allow reasonable freedom of movement to the aged inmates who now crowd uncomfortably, not only the rooms of the buildings, but also the walks and yards. In my opinion the city should provide a new almshouse with ample acreage preferably either on Staten Island or Long Island; when the site now occupied by the Home could be converted to park purposes.

No better temporary shelter for the homeless people of a great city could be desired than the new Municipal Lodging-House on East Twenty-fifth street, which was opened February 15, 1909, and provides comfortable sleeping accommodations for 689 men and 49 women. A visit to this institution at nightfall is full of human interest, and no feature of the varied charitable work of the Metropolis is more useful.

A much needed hospital steamboat intended to carry patients and others from the pier of the department at the foot of East Twenty-sixth street to the charitable institutions on the islands in the East river went into commission in June, 1908. To commemorate the public services of the late Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, formerly a commissioner of the State Board of Charities, who for many years devotedly strove for the improvement of the public charities of the city, the new steamboat was named "The Lowell," and a suitable memorial token placed in the saloon.

Overcrowding is general throughout the Department, except in the Lodging-House, and the city should take prompt and sufficient measures to relieve present discomforts due to this cause, and make provision elsewhere for the future needs of a greater population. An important step in this direction was taken when the city began the erection of the new sanatorium for tuberculosis patients at Sea View on Staten Island; several of the pavilions of

erection there of a hospital of moderate size, at such point as may, upon inquiry, seem to be most in need of its ministrations, is desirable.

All of which is respectfully submitted,

WILLIAM R. STEWART,

Commissioner First Judicial District.

New York, December 30, 1909.

To the Honorable William R. Stewart, President, State Board of Charities and Commissioner for the First Judicial District: DEAR SIR. At the request of the Superintendent of State and Alien Poor, I submit for your consideration the following report on the public charitable institutions of the First Judicial District, inspected within the past three months. Some facts are included in regard to the institutions of the Department of Public Charities in the Second Judicial District.

The institutions, generally, are in good order and clean. This points to efficient administration. The minor shortcomings to which attention has been called in reports of inspection are not such as seriously interfere with the welfare of patients or inmates. Overcrowding prevails, however, in almost every institu

tion.

The Department. of Public Charities and Bellevue and Allied Hospitals are considered separately.

I. THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC CHARITIES. HON. ROBERT W. HEBBERD.. Commissioner of Public Charities

As the present administration of the city's affairs is drawing to its close, it seems appropriate to speak not only of the present condition of the department and its institutions, but also of the changes that have been made in the past four years, and of preseut plans and projects especially in their relation to the general policy of the department. That the present administration was confronted at the outset by a hard problem is well known. The unusual, even unique difficulties of administering poor relief in New York City need not be detailed here. Overcrowded institutions had resulted from failure through many years to enlarge the institutions to keep pace with the growth of the city, and from such general causes as immigration, congestion of popula