Open. Though the photographs were made for the Joint Administrative Board, it is not clear if Columbia University possesses the copyright to them.
32 photographs of interiors of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.
History and Biography
The Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center was an alliance between Columbia University, specifically its medical school, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Presbyterian Hospital. The final agreement reached in 1922 required the two institutions to establish a “Joint Administrative Board” to oversee the planning and construction of a complex that would house both the hospital and the medical school – at the time located at two widely separated campuses in Manhattan.
Philanthropist Edward S. Harkness and his mother, Anna Richardson Harkness, purchased a 15 acre site in New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood in 1915 as the site for the new campus. Construction began in 1925 and the main complex housing the hospital, and the medical, dental, and nursing schools opened in 1928. Structures housing Babies Hospital, the Neurological Institute, and the New York State Psychiatric Institute were inaugurated in 1929. The complex was known as the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, though no such corporate entity ever existed.
The Joint Administrative Board continued into the 1960s but met only rarely after the completion of the Medical Center.
Organization
32 black and white photographs of interiors of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Though undated, these appear to have been taken at the time the main part of the complex opened in 1928. The views depict the dining rooms for attending doctors, interns, nurses, and general personnel; the private oxygen suite; and the nursery suite in the Harkness Private Patient Pavilion. There are no people seen in the images except for infants in some of the nursery suite photographs. There are also two identical photos of “Baby Eldred” taken at 2 days old.
Each photograph measures 8” x 10” (20 cm. x 25.5 cm.) and except for two are adhered to the page. All but two of the images are labeled with a description and a unique number. The photographer is unidentified.
Subject Headings and Related Records
Administrative Information
Gift of the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Office of Public Affairs (Columbia University Medical Center), 2000 (accession #2000.01.20)
Photograph album housed in acid free folder and document box.