Bronx Maternity & Woman’s Hospital

Located at the corner of the Grand Concourse & 166th Street in the Bronx, this hospital is where my uncle Bob, Robert Louis Juers, was born on August 19, 1946.

I was searching for it to get the actual address so I could map it out, and I found an interesting email exchange about the hospital on a RootsWeb page, which is an Ancestry.com affiliate…

 From: “Barbara K” <sanitized email>
Subject: Re: Bronx Maternity and Woman’s Hospital
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005

Steven,

Thank you for that background on the Bronx Women’s Maternity Hospital.  It’s very interesting. I couldn’t find anything about this outbreak either, but I was told about this by my mother. I wish, I wish I could remember what happened.

Barbara

>>> “Steven S” <sanitized email> 02/20/05 >>>

Bronx Maternity and Woman’s Hospital opened in 1920 in a new building at the  northeast corner of Grand Concourse (#1072) & 166th Street.

Bronx Maternity Hospital (the original name) was chartered in 1914, with the intention of constructing a building in the Hunt’s Point section of the Bronx. The hospital’s founders were Jewish, and wanted to serve a densely populated Jewish community in the South Bronx.

By 1933, the hospital was using the longer name.  In 1950, the Bronx Maternity & Woman’s Hospital closed, upon merging with the Jewish Memorial Hospital in northern Manhattan.  The Bronx facility had become outmoded. It was sold after the merger, and became a nursing home.  Jewish Memorial Hospital, in turn, went bankrupt in 1983, and closed after 78 years of service.

Research in The New York Times doesn’t reveal information about an epidemic around 1941.  However, in 1942, a nurse at the hospital was sentenced to manslaughter, for killing a 20-hour-old baby in her care.  She gave several drops of tincture of laudanum to the infant.  The nurse also gave a few drops to a 4-day-old infant, who recovered.  The nurse “admitted that she gave the drops to the babies, in an effort to quiet them, because their cries made her nervous.”

Steven S, NYC

—– Original Message —–
From: “Barbara K” <sanitized email>
To: <NYC-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 9:08 AM
Subject: bronx women’s maternity hospital

Hello everyone,

I wonder if someone might have some information about the Bronx Women’s Maternity Hospital. It was located on the Grand Concourse & closed sometime after 1941. Now I’m going to give my age away. I was born there in that year. I was told by my parents that there was an  epidemic  of some sort and many of the newborns died. Apparently I did not.

Would anyone have any information or knowledge as to what that may have  been?

Barbara in Jacksonville

The hospital is now known as the Concourse Rehabilitation & Nursing Center.