This is the Smallpox Hospital (also referred to as the Renwick Ruins, Renwick Small Pox Hospital and the Maternity and Charity Hospital Training School) located on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan, New York, United States.
The Renwick Smallpox Hospital was designed in 1854 by architect James Renwick Jr. in a Gothic Revival Style. Renwick Hospital was three stories and a nine-bay U-shaped structure. The building facade was made with granite veneer in a random ashlar pattern over load bearing rubble masonry.
Renwick Hospital opened in 1856 when the area was known as Blackwell’s Island. It was often used to house and quarantine the large outbreaks of smallpox that would occur in New York City, most notably due to the arrival of infected immigrants. 100 years later in the 1950′s the 100 bed hospital closed when the Maternity and Charity Hospital Training School moved locations.
There is an ongoing $4.5 million stabilizing project to help revive the buildings as they are deteriorating quickly and in 2007 the North Wing section collapsed. Once this is completed it will be open to the public.