Welcome to Bellevue and the Ghosts of New York's Psychologically Challenged

Bellevue

Bellevue Hospital Center, most often referred to as "Bellevue", was founded on March 31, 1736 and is the oldest public hospital in the United States. Located on First Avenue in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, Bellevue is famous from many literary, film and television references, and as the training ground for many of America's leaders in medicine. Affiliated with the New York University School of Medicine since 1968, Bellevue has been the site of many milestones in the history of medicine,^[1] from the establishment of the first ambulance service and first maternity ward, to Nobel Prize-winning cardiac catheterization laboratory - according to Wikipedia. But that's not what Bellevue is most known for. New York magazine describes it  more succinctly as it is known to most New Yorkers:

"Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, the Bellevue that for 78 years has stood, gloomy and gated, on 30th and First, the Bellevue made infamous in movies and nightmares, the forbidding destination for so many celebrated and notorious New Yorkers that it stands as a chilling landmark: the Chelsea Hotel of the mad." Today Bellevue stands as a homeless shelter for men and whilst the lunatics of the past have vacated the premises an entire group of new lunatics have moved in. I know them well. I live there. (Continued...)

This blog. aHBiNYC is now available as an eBook. It covers the writer's homeless experiences in New York City from September 11, 2011 through January 2013 in 245 pages and 50 chapters. To order simply use the PayPal button in the sidebar, send $10, and include your email address in the PayPal memo form. Thank you.