While many of the buildings that once made up St. Vincent's Hospital are being remade as residential condos and apartments, one building will see new life as a medical center. The Times reports that the former O'Toole building, a 200-foot-long concrete structure on Seventh Avenue between West 12th and West 13th Streets, will be redeveloped as a stand-alone emergency room and medical care center run by the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. The odd-looking edifice was originally built 50 years ago for the National Maritime Union (thus the porthole windows), and St. Vincent's used it as a medical services building until 2008, when the Landmarks Preservation Commission granted the hospital a hardship application. The plan was to raze the building and replace it with a new tower, but St. Vincent's closed before that could happen.
Now the landmark, designed by Albert C. Ledner and dedicated in March 1964, has undergone a full architectural rehabilitation, which was approved by the LPC in 2011. The Times writes that "Ledner fancifully evoked seafaring themes," with porthole windows and "a rooftop elevator bulkhead reminiscent of a steamship's smokestack." The renovation is costing about $125 million, and the new facility should be opened by next July.
· Again, a New Life for a Shiplike Building in the Village [NYT]
· O'Toole Building coverage [Curbed]
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