Greenwich Village's St. Vincent's Hospital Will Close

Businesses are businesses.

That is is the POV of the Republicians who are concerned with profits not the welfare of the people.

The Catholic Church has a global financial structure that is wrapped in secrecy and huge payments to the victims of sex abuse.

Wall St and the real estate interests can always get a closed door rescue deal when they are in trouble.

St. Vincients don't won't a closed door rescue deal because profits are put ahead of the people.

Quinn & child molestation had nothing to do with it. Businesses are businesses. Reimbursement cuts, excess inpatient beds, the Burger Comission, top-heavy heavily salaried admins, locked collective bargaining, assuming debt of failed institutions in consolidation, inability to foresee & adjust to the market, duplication of services, multi-million dollar consulting contracts and nepotism. Just like GM, they had their chance after bankruptcy, and changed nothing. No admin thinning, no concessions, no givebacks, no adjustment. It is too bad to the community at large, but sooner or later market rules kick in. Fire the consultants, cut the Admin by 3/4, get some contract concessions, alter services, they could have survived. They didn't, they lose.

Christine Quinn went to the protest but supports the tax breaks for the real estate lobby and Wall Street. She knows where her bread is buttered.

the chruch dropped there connection with the hospital a long time ago

If the Church did not have the sex abuse scandal to deal with, they could have provided the needed funds.

the chruch dropped there connection with the hospital a long time ago it has had to run on it own since.how can a city that keeps growning loose another hospital the lower west side has had a big increase in residental apartments in the last 15-20 years.plus st vinny's is the only level 1 trauma center in lower manhattan .bellevue is the only one now between the battery and 67 the street. after that NY Presbyterian

is the next one all he way up on 68th street on the east side.I feel bad for beth isreal they are going to get the brunt of it if they cannot keep an urgent care center here.st vinny's handle 60,000 er visits a year.I can see 6 to 8 hour waiting times just to get into the ER . a big part of the problem is the state reduce medicaid payments to the hospital and medicare payments were reduced .St vinnys has been known for thier charity when people cannot afford to pay for their medical care you would not be turned away like at some hospitals. where is the white house to bail out something the public truly needs.

Maybe this will get Beekman, oops I meant NYU/downtown to improve their services.

closing hospitals, another bloomberg legacy.

at least we got 2 brand new stadiums. we know where are priorities are.

Worthless Christine Quinn DID nothing but show her ugly face in the protest. WTF is she doing in the protest when she is the 2nd powerful person in the city. She plays both sides. fucking bitch

THEN OTB should NOT be bail out if St Vincent wasn't.

Those child molesters bankrupted the Catholic Church, thats why they don't have the money.

I have been a RN for 21 years at St. Vincents O.R. This women touched my heart. the scum who are responsible for the closing of St. Vincents should rot in HELL!!!!

This is the most recent letter the same person sent me.

Dear Frank ~



Actually, I was shocked to hear that Al Smith was chairman of the board. Shocked and sickened. I know it came to him via his great grandfather, but there is no more perfect word which suits him better than PUNK.....how about "little punk"



He's the same age as I. It was my misfortune to meet him in high school. He attended Iona Prep in New Rochelle. I went to a girls' high school on the other side of the tracks, St. Gabriel's into which parish and grammar school I was placed for adoption after leaving the NY Foundling in 1954 ..... of course, a Sister of Charity school.



Anyway, it was around 1967. Iona had just been giving property and money to build their prep off the college campus. The boys, in addition to a new school, wanted cheerleaders. The Christian Brothers were bound to accomodate them as we know the church so often does for those with money. So, the Brothers did what they always did when their males wanted females, they contacted the Sisters. That is ALSO how Iona College began its co-ed program. So, the nuns asked us to take the bus UP TOWN and grace the new prep property. We worked and practiced like crazy. Of course, after the first football season was over, the Ursuline School, Iona's financially equal girls' school starting kicking and screaming as they wanted that 'prized' place on the side lines of football and basketball games. And so for the next two years, it was disaster. six cheerleaders from St. Gabe's and six from Ursuline. Disaster because the Ursuline girls always came late for practice and sped away early in their own new cars. While we dedicated fool from Gabe's hopped two buses with books and what not falling all over the streets to get uptown to accomodate the boys.



Eventually, of course, the Ursulines took over the entire squad. As it goes, this is always the way in the Church it seems.



Anyway, Al Smith was part of the cocky, annoying, entitled bunch of creeps. He and that same year, Louis Cappelli. Another loser who has partnered up with Trump these past 10 years to build these towering monstrosities that have destroyed our lovely New Rochelle.





Anyway, time passed. I went to and graduated from Iona College in 1973. We were the first full co ed graduating class. That September I married my college sweetheart. Danny Murphy, boy from a family of 7 in the Bronx who'd gone to St. Raymond's.



I had worked through H.S. and College at New Rochelle Hosp where my dad had been a lab tech for 58 years (without a sick day) after having been the hospital's first ambulance driver. Upon graduation, I got a job at JW Thompson on Lex between 42 and 43 in advertising. My husband had his sights set on Wall Street. We were very happy. Until he hooked up with Al Smith........



I tried to talk REASON with Danny. Explain to him what a well dressed bum Al was. Remind him how just a few short years prior he had done little more than mock and bash this type of "rich kid". To no avail. Al blinded Danny with the "good life".. Partying, drinking, prostitutes, you name it. Of course the marriage fell apart within four years. Al was kind enough to find Danny a SNAKE of a lawyer and of course, I the "foundling" was once more again found in life with nothing and left with even more nothing.



Yes, indeed. A punk. Al dated a friend through college. She was a really nice girl named Gina Mendes. She went to school out west. Colorado I think. Anyway, they were in a car accident. Gina was kept hospitalized and in traction for months. Al was driving. After the accident he did not so much as call her once or send her a mere get well card.



So, of course, after 30 years, you can understand why it was no great comfort to read of SVH demise from the mouth of that punk. He and people like him are CLUELESS to the pain and suffering of others.



I had heard somewhere through the years that Smith was part of the new Robin Hood Foundation. During the past two months when I heard that Robin Hood had suddenly donated alot of money to the New York Foundling, I was happy but curious. I thought it odd that this should occur during the impending demise of SVH. Who knows if one had anything to do with the other.



Despite the pain EVERYONE who loves SVH is suffering right now, just be glad you are Frank and not Al Smith. Thank God that you were born with compassion and a desire to help people. Rejoice in that your family and friends love you for your heart and not your wallet. Even in pain, this heart knows more of life and the true passion of living it than the likes of a Smith could ever even imagine. When you are unable to give your children, as I am mine, all that you would like, remember you give them the BEST, that which is priceless.



And when you get down, remember, that the likes of Al Smith would give his right arm to feel for one day the love the likes of Frank Sttecasi feels every day of his life.



I won't be at the rally. I can't. I would not be able to control my tears or punching Al Smith in the face (as if he would show up unprotected.....punk). I wish you well. You have a good profession, you will find work easily. Just pour that devotion and skill of yours anywhere you go and there too shall St. Vincent's always live.





God's Speed !



Sincerely,

Penelope Carter



(if you DO get a chance to punch Al Smith................hit him hard and tell him it's for what he did to Danny Murphy's wife !) Thanks

This is another letter she sent me.

My Dear Sister of Charity ~~



Some one just sent me today's NY Times article about St. Vincent's Hospital. Having read it, I feel as if my heart was cut out of me, put on a butcher block and chopped in two by a tomahawk !!!!! And I haven't even taken my coat and scarf off yet.



I am really sick to my stomach. There are no words to console. There are no thoughts to lift. There is nothing.



I think the ONLY one who "gets" this at all is Governor Patterson.



I am even too ill to revel in punching Susan Sarandon in that rhinoplastered nose of hers !!!!!



Not only is my heart on the chopping block and my stomach doing somersaults, I also feel as if someone just tossed me into the thin ice of the deepest darkest lake -- a BIG lake, like Superior or Huron !!!!!



I know what the absence of Saint Vincent's would mean to the City. I know what the absence of Saint Vincent's would mean to the country. And I know what the absence of Saint Vincent's would say to Heaven, itself.



I know how you are handling this. I know you are keeping it in God's Hands. Pleading for the intercession of Mother Seton. Offering all your Communions. Wearing down your rosaries. And softly and quietly and privately shedding tears on your pillows at night. I KNOW this, because I know you.



I know that the article was tantamount to announcing to a mother that her child may die.



I know God does not abandon us.........even in our darkest hours. But I also know that if that hospital goes, a terrorizing cloud will befall the City of New York, the likes of which no one can imagine. And I know what the effects of that cloud would be and the thought of that brings such TERROR to my already lost and butchered heart that it's a good thing it's not in my body anymore because it too, would simply ARREST.



I'm sorry, Sisters, I can't pray tonight. It's just not in me. If Almighty God is in the mood to resurrect my heart, well so be it. But it's going to have to be His move.



I know, right now, you are advising me to look to the Blessed Mother but I am really not in the mood to look to anyone. If the Blessed Mother wants to try to glue the pieces I am back together, that's her affair.



As I said.......I know what this means for New York and her people. And thank you, no, a dish of ice cream or a glass of wine will not help. Nothing will but the pertpetuation of Saint Vincent's.



I also feel like someone stuck a knife in my back.



Well, my dear Sisters, if it is any consolation...........I'm "out of cash", too. And I could not be in better company.



You know I was born at Saint Vincent's on Father's Day, 1951 and I cannot help but recall what my younger daughter recently said to me when I asked "Why can't you find a husband?".



"Mom", said she "There are NO guys !!!!"



I cynically replied "What do you mean? You're going out all the time !!!"



She said "Yeah.......but Mom. There are no GUYS. The guys just need to "man up".



I get what she was saying. The guys DO need to "man up". How much hope is there for that one????





Well, I'll go take my coat off, now. I'm not hungry. No dinner tonight.





I really am very very very sorry. It seems your City is failing you in your hour of need. Much of this is John O'Connor's fault, but silly to place blame now.



And don't even MENTION the Church to me now !!!!!!!!! We're not going there tonight !!!!!!



I'll leave you with the reminder of what Saint Elizabeth Seton's sister said to her upon hearing of Elizabeth's chosen path..........

"Take this route and you'll know nothing but poverty and sorrow for the rest of your days".



To which our quick witted and devoted Daughter of New York replied, "Then poverty and sorrow shall be my best friends".



May God give us strength.





Sincerely in Christ,

Penelope Ann ~~ '51 Saint Vincent's

A women sent me this poem about St. Vincent's

Take a few minutes from the business of the screen before you. Stop. The world will not stop because of it. Go into that place of depth of silence within your being where nothing can be heard save the whisper of God. It is a place where all strangers meet as one in the moment before the dawn of when life takes its first breath.



I am neither poet nor published writer. I am a person of no means and of little consequence. Actually, I am no one and nothing. And yet and still I, too, possess that place of being which God has given to us all......each and every one.



Step out into a winter's night in upstate New York. You walk and walk in the vastness of it all allowing all thoughts to rummage through your mind until the noise of them plays itself out. You walk and walk until you feel that the rest of the world is asleep and you, alone, are the only one treading upon the face of it.



The night is so cold that each and every breath you exhale you can see freezing in mid air before your very eyes. Eventually, you are moved to look up to an ink black sky which is graced with millions of stars. They are infinite, invigorating, impossible to count or comprehend. What are they, these little pin pricks in the vastness of all that which belongs to midnight, but capillaries of heaven somehow trying to speak to us!



Their very presence warms us. Their twinkling returns us to a childhood discovering wonder around every corner. Where the starlight falls, we know not. But we know it penetrates the darkest of souls as certainly as it paints the sky.



We are comforted. There are graces which come from God, shed upon this chaotic and warring world of ours. And although we know not where they are, we know that they are.



And time moves on. And more suns rise. And we are busy with the business of the screens and keyboards before us. And we forget the sky and ignore the stars and abandon that place which moves us to look up.



Another sun sets and the sky turns to slate and it clutches, in vain, the remains of a day where the sun once shone. And the temperature drops but we go outside in the bareness of naked trees and frozen ground to, ironically, find something warm.



And we walk again ridding ourselves of those same empty thoughts trying to free themselves from the snares and tentacles of the worries of the world and the day's anxieties. And we walk and we walk as the sky's slate turns to charcoal and the snow covered ground beneath our feet crunches with each new step.



And in that sky, presenting it self to us, as a magnificent display, is a full warm yellow orange moon rising in the pink glow abandoned by the sun. And as the sky turns to night and the night into dark and the dark into black, that moon rises to its call as yellowed bright white and suddenly it is night no more. The snow and the moon become one to give us day and although it is night, we are in darkness no more.



An inner excitement elevates the mind and rejuvenates the spirit !!!! You can saddle up your horse and trot through wooded country paths with nose running and eyes tearing to the rhythm of hoof beats in the snow as soft and as strong as a baby's heartbeat.



Or you can grab your poles and click on some skis and cross country through the woods, as if in broad daylight swooshing and turning and barreling along, in and out of the trees and across the blanketed meadows.......and yet the world is asleep. And you are the sole creature dancing atop the face of the earth.



That powerful moon is smiling on everything in your playground and your silence, creating shadows and toying with the child which you are, sitting perfect and still in that vastness and blackness above obeying a Creator who chooses day and night at once for little more reason than the pleasure of your smile.



And you have exhausted your body, as well as your mind, and to breathe in the frigid air causes your lungs to hurt and your heart to race and the very rush of nature moves your senses to crystalline perfection mimmicking each twig in like encasement.



And there are no stars for they have all been gathered into the brilliance of that bright white perfect orb which reigns so comfortably and confidently in the endless black of the sky. And all the twinkling of the once infinite stars has been collected and presents itself from heaven through the select, elite, cream of the crop of endless saints.



And as this light and life and glow and warmth and way of perfection penetrates the earth as a perfectly natural playground, it graces, as well, the deepest and darkest caverns of the soul of the greatest City in the world. And the place in this City where God chose to shine the best of his Saints is Saint Vincent's Hospital.



Like that enlightening, glowing lantern in the sky, so too is this place of love and life and births and healings conceived to lift the crying Soul of an ever burdened City.





Ironic that this situation with Saint Vincent's should present itself at this time. This is a time when the world is chattering and clucking like a headless hen about keeping this City safe. This is a moment when all are spew jibberish that no more terror must fall upon her shattered heart and broken spirit. How simple minded is man in his well intentioned motives. Can moving the trial of a threatening foreigner spare the abandoned baby terror of heart? Or spare the innocent the threat of very "being", itself?



As I said, I am nothing and no one, but I have knowledge and I have experience that Saint Vincent's is not a mere hospital. It is the effect of grace coming from a God who turns night into day for the abandoned and suffering. It is the work of Saints and the pride of Angels. It is the comfort of the City that never sleeps. It is the lullably of the sick and hope for the helpless.



I cannot conceive of a state without Saint Vincent's. Saint Vincent's was the welcoming womb for me, the babe, who had no other. Saint Vincent's is the beginning of life for one..........of a life for thousands.....tens of thousands like me. In fact, Saint Vincent's is the womb of "my" people. Saint Vincent's is the roots of the tree I grew to be and those leaves from that tree which now offer shade to the parched and dry. Before a life is delivered as matter, Saint Vincent's begins to nurture its soul.



Not too long ago, I was forced to face some brutal realities. My lovely daughters and I marched onto a train and set out for a pilgrimage. They needed to see from whence and where they came.. All had been lost to these beautiful young women. Their father, gone. Their grandparents dead. Their home in ashes. Their woods stolen from them. All bank accounts empty. No charity to be found. No hope. No faith. We three clung desperately to the fragile seeds of love planted all along the path of the time that had come before.



I took them by their hands, as they now tower over me, and we walked into Saint Vincent's and I said "This is it !!!! Who we are." They took it all in and they saw my moon. And that this was their starting place, too.



Saint Vincent's........where artists and dancers and lovers of life are born. Saint Vincent's......the heavenly safety net from all terrors. Saint Vincent's.......the handiwork of the love of our most beloved Saints. Saint Vincent's...........the place where God, in his infinite Wisdom and Mercy, deemed it right and just to smile on New York.



Saint Vincent's.......to me, a no one and nothing?..........the sky and the moon and the stars.



I think prayers in this regard should probably all be directed toward the Archbishop of New York. He's not much older than I, myself. And although he has made us aware from day one that his presence in New York was not exactly his choice but rather an "order" from the Bishop of Rome, had he known then, that which I have always known, he may well have said to the Holy Father......"As long as there is Saint Vincent's, I can bear New York". (Poor kid in pre Cardinal robes.) The situation concerning Saint Vincent's Hospital has little to do with investment bankers, ex mayors, landmark committees or even 'has been' actresses and everything to do with God and His Saints. So, indeed, Timothy will certainly need prayers!



The moon is setting. The sun is rising. Your screens and icons, therein, are screaming for your attention. The world will go 'round and 'round and 'round.............but without the moon, the tides most certainly will change. And may God be with us all.



Sincerely in Christ,

Penelope Ann Carter

'51 Saint Vincent's baby

Wow. I can't believe it's actually going to happen.

A few months ago we moved ( http://www.divinemoving.com ) a lot of tenants away from this area in anticipation of the big demolition and years of construction.

I guess that a few landlords in the are very happy right now and they might get the tenants and rents that they used to get before the announced plan.

They're converting it to a Christian Scientist hospital. Very low budget requirements.

It is going to be devasting to the community as well. When a friend, and an employee of St Vinny decided he'd have to cut back on some expenses and resigned his Gym membership in the neighborhood on Monday, the Gym said he was the 37th one to resign that day! Businesses, restaurants, etc. are going to be negatively impacted throughout the West Village. So terribly sad.

God will provide.

...

LOL... just kidding.

Screw the only hospital on the entire lower West Side. State money is needed for more important things, like keeping OTB afloat. Besides, everyone knows the Catholic Church has no money.

This is a travesty.

Wait until you see how long it takes for an ambulance to get to you now in that area. Someone will replace the St. Vinny's units (either FDNY or NY Downtown, or NYPH or Beth Israel or Roosevelt) but now every unit will be responding from a hospital on 59th street or on the east side. Response times will surely go up very quickly. Just terrible.

We don't respond from "hospitals" we respond from our 89's. Which will change if need be. Vinny's only has 3 BLS units. Not a major worry.

I am aware we respond from our 89's. The SV units (6K, 6C, 7A, 2V, 7W) which are likely going to be taken over by BI now, as per latest rumor, will likely keep the same 89s. However, when those units respond to jobs in the same areas as they do now, they will be transporting patients all the way to 01, 02, 03, 18. This means longer 82 times and longer 81 times due to overcrowding at hospitals picking up the overflow from Vinnies. So when they go 98 out of those hospitals there are already bound to be more jobs holding and more units coming up extended for those jobs.

So this means there will be no hospital on the West Side from Battery Park to 59th Street.

The condos for the rich are more important than hospitals, if they get sick they will take a first class flight to the Mayo Clinic. Let those working class jerks die, who cares.

Hope all those who didn't want St. Vincent's to expand and build housing on the current site are happy now. The condos will eventually go up anyway, but now you have no hospital.

Through a combination of ego and incompetence the St. Vincent's board has made bad decisions for years and this is the result. The "hail Mary" pass to build the hospital out of this mess would have failed and the Village would have ended up with a historic district busting tower to be sold. It was a real estate scheme from beginning to its end. Many of the buildings are landmarked and will be adapted for re-use. Why any other hospital would want to saddle itself with St. Vincent's debt is incomprehensible. Now, someone will come in and pick up the pieces. Hopefully, the result will be a downsized acute facility that will provide responsible care.

the board effectively closed the last Roman Catholic general hospital

The key words are Roman Catholic, my questions are:

1-Have the books been open for public review?

2-To what extent have the sex abuse payments by the RC Church impacted on St. Vincents?

I'm sure the site will make for great luxury apartments developed by a friend of the Mayor. If this doesn't happen, I'll eat my hat.

Truly sad. It is the closing of a family hospital for me. My brother and I were both born there, my father was born there, my father and mother both worked and met there, and my grandmother was a nurse there.

Quite a shame.

...... incredible.....