Seaview Hospital was opened on November 12th,1913. Located at 460 Brielle Avenue, this hospital was built to care for patients with Tuberculosis, which at the time had been a huge epidemic. Tuberculosis was known as the “white plague”. The architect Raymond F. Almirall built this hospital Colonial Revival style. This was considered to be the largest and finest hospital in the state, the total cost of it was about 4 million dollars!
This hospital was built on a 94-acre property and had several buildings built, a nearby farm colony soon became a part of Seaview hospital.The finished construction included a staff house, surgical pavilion, nurses’ residence, kitchen and dining hall, power and laundry complex, and a garage and morgue building. Underground tunnels connected the buildings and made it easier for staff, doctors, and nurses to travel from one place to another. This hospital treated about 30,000 patients while it was still up and running.
Unfortunately, this hospital had a short run. In 1943 Rutgers University found a cure to tuberculosis and the last patient was released in 1961; because there were buildings specifically built for the care of tuberculosis they were pushed to shut down and new buildings were created specifically for senior care; leaving some old buildings abandoned and rotting away. The former dining and kitchen hall has been turned into a counseling and living recovery program for young men battling substance abuse. The pathology lab is now the offices of ballet, and the surgical pavilion is now Camelot museum.
However if you do decide to visit these abandoned grounds be sure to wear a mask and be extra careful, there’s still asbestos(microfiber minerals that are resistant to heat, fire, and chemical; can cause cancer and problems with airway) in the air as well as broken glass and rusty metal everywhere. Though these grounds are especially popular to teenagers on the island and many people come to take photos of it.
Posted by Tom Crimmins Realty on
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