'Bedpan Alley': Lenox Hill Hospital Expansion Pooh-Poohed By Locals

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Plans for a new Upper East Side hospital building were pooh-poohed this week by a slew of locals who say the project isn't needed in "bedpan alley."

“We don’t need yet another hospital,” state Sen. Liz Krueger said at a packed meeting Wednesday to discuss the latest iteration of Northwell's plans to rebuild the aging Lenox Hill Hospital.

“How many communities — not just in other parts of the city and state, but even in other parts of Manhattan — are desperate for additional hospital access?"

Krueger was just one of nearly 400 people to attend a packed panel discussion organized by the Committee to Protect Our Lenox Hill Neighborhood Wednesday and moderated by former NY1 journalist Zack Fink, now the director of external affairs at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, a firm retained by the Committee.

The six-person panel voiced several concerns about Lenox Hill Hospital's plan to build a 436-foot-tall tower — which one neighbor called a "monstrosity from Mars"— on Lexington Avenue and East 77th Street over an 11-year span.

The main concerns: health equity, location, duration of the construction, and size.

Lenox Hill Hospital, owned by Northwell Health, says that major upgrades are needed to get the strange patchwork of aged buildings up to modern hospital standards, and is looking for a zoning variance on part of the block between East 76th and 77th streets facing Lexington Avenue to build the tower.

The new building would add over 600,000-square-feet to the hospital and rid the hospital of double-capacity patient rooms with all-new single capacity rooms, 25 additional hospital beds total, and state-of-the-art operating rooms and other medical facilities.

The Park Avenue facing building would remain intact and operational during the project, according to Northwell's plans.

While residents admitted Lenox Hill Hospital needed an upgrade, they argued the tower — which would have a floor plate size larger than the Empire State Building — would too big for the neighborhood.

“No one is saying the shabby, un-renovated Lenox Hill Hospital can stay the way it is,” said Stephanie Reckler.

“Yes, we want a better Lenox Hill Hospital,” Reckler said. “Not a bigger one.”
A Lenox Hill representative told Patch they were not invited to participate in Wednesday's town hall.

Pols Mixed In 'Bedpan Alley'

Krueger, who referred to the Upper East Side as “bedpan alley,” was not the only elected official to weigh in on the proposed engorged hospital tower.

A representative from Congressman Jerold Nadler’s office called the project a “monstrosity,” and that “it doesn’t belong here.”

Meanwhile, Council Member Keith Powers, whose district includes the building site and arguably has the most power over the city’s sign-off, was described as “on the fence” by panelist Andy Gaspar.

Powers, who created a task force with then-Borough President Gale Brewer and helped facilitate about 10 meetings between residents and Northwell in 2019 and 2020, later told Patch that “meaningful reductions” have been achieved since the project was first proposed.

“Moving forward," Powers said, "we will continue negotiating for the best possible outcome for the community.”

Eleven Years Of Construction

Lenox Hill Hospital's plan to remain open during construction, which would stretch construction time to 11 years, was met with dread from locals who doubted they could stand more than a decade of noise and traffic.

Panelist Richard Scharf compared the project to the 93-story mega tower One Vanderbilt, which took just four years to build.

"It shows the extraordinary burden of keeping the hospital operational," Scharf said. "It's like changing tires on a moving car."

Gaspar, a panelist, venture capitalist and co-founder of the committee brought a personal complaint to the discussion: he lives across the street from the hospital.

"I get upset when Con-Ed digs up in front of my house for two weeks,” Gaspar said. “The idea of 11 years of going through a construction zone is just unthinkable.”

But Jacob Scheinerman, the chairman of the Cardiothoracic Surgery at Lenox Hill, told Patch the inconvenience to neighbors would also bring a marked improvement to patient care without disrupting surgeries.

Scheinerman noted he and his family also live in the neighborhood, and he said that when he worked at Long Island Jewish Hospital in Queens, Northwell underwent a similar project there.

“I was there taking care of patients and commuting every day during the construction,” the doctor said.

“Honestly,” Scheinerman said of the finished product, “I think it's worth the inconvenience of the construction.”

Two days before the meeting, the executive director of Lenox Hill Hospital published a guest column in the New York Daily News.

“As we plan these much-needed improvements, we recognize that the hospital is more than a facility — we are neighbors and members of this community,” the piece by Daniel Baker reads. “Community engagement has always been a core value for us at Lenox Hill.”

‘Gigantic Grandiose Destination Hospital’

But health equity advocate and panelist Lois Uttley argues the numbers don’t add up.

Specifically, Uttley compared State Department of Health hospital-bed-per-capita data on the Upper East Side and in outer boroughs to highlight New York City's inequitable distribution of health care access.

While the Upper East side has 9.6 hospital beds per 1,000 residents, Brooklyn has only two and Queens just 1.8, Uttley said.

The citywide rate is 2.6.

In downtown New York — where Mount Sinai recently announced it will close 16th Street's Beth Israel Medical Center — the numbers are lower still.

The Lower East Side and Chinatown together have only half a hospital bed per 1,000 residents,” Uttley said.

“If Northwell wants to build up a gigantic grandiose destination hospital someplace,” Uttley said, “how about the Lower East Side?”

"Their Lot Is Too Small"

Northwell, who faced intense blowback a few years ago from many of the same residents who gathered Wednesday, has since nixed a big residential tower on Park Avenue and lowered the total proposed hospital building height from 516 feet to 436 feet.

But the new plans include a girthier tower block.

“The Lexington tower got a little shorter,” said zoning and planning expert George Janes, “then it got a lot fatter.”

Janes described the “fat” size of the tower’s floor plates as more appropriate in a central business district, such as Hudson Yards, and are almost never seen in more residential areas like the Upper East Side.

At 400 feet up, the tower as proposed would have a floor plate larger than the Empire State Building and nearly as large as mega Midtown and Hudson Yards towers like One Bryant Park, 10 Hudson Yards and One Vanderbilt, according to a diagram made by Janes based on the current Northwell proposal.

“The problem is that their lot is too small," Janes said.

“And so what do you do? Do you go up or do you try to find another spot?"'

Reckler, vice president of opposition group Committee to Protect Our Lenox Hill Neighborhood, argued Northwell should renovate and modernize from within.

"Bring it up to state-of-the-art hospital standards and technology to accommodate new trends in healthcare," Reckler urged. "Do it all in a reasonable period of time with minimal disruption to our neighborhood."

“We are up against the largest employer in New York State,” Reckler said.

“We were successful in 2019,” Reckler said, “And we will be successful again.”