652 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
planned to build a hospital for each borough, so as to do away with the necessity of conveying patients across to North Brother Island, with all the dangerous and cruel exposure, and the sepa- ration of parent from child, which that must mean. For these extensions plans have already been drawn and a considerable sum of money set aside. Meanwhile, a new $3 50,000 scarlet-fever pavilion, to hold from 225 to 250 patients, is to be added to the Willard Parker Hospital at the foot of East Sixteenth Street. This will probably be finished in 1904. Negotiations have been begun for the purchase of land in the borough of the Bronx, whither it is planned to move the research and vaccine laboratories. Eventually, too, it is hoped that further advantage may be taken of the wholesome and beautiful natural surroundings of North Brother Island by erecting there an outdoor camp for consump- tives. 1
Already $40,000 has been spent in necessary repairs to the buildings on North Brother Island.
New plumbing has been introduced, and general repairs have been made so as to provide better accommodations for both patients and the nursing staff. Plans were made for the erection of a new nurses' home, for larger and better quarters for each employee, for solariums to be added to the existing scarlet-fever pavilions ; for a new pier at North Brother Island ; and for a new pier at East One Hundred and Thirty-second Street ; with a waiting- room and a disinfecting station at the latter. A naptha launch has been sub- stituted for the open row-boat formerly used at that point. The steamboat "Franklin Edson," which is used in transporting patients between the recep- tion hospital at the foot of East Sixteenth Street and North Brother Island, has been entirely rebuilt. A telephone system has been established on the island, connecting every pavilion with the main switch-board and from there with the long-distance telephone, so that persons at any point can communi- cate directly with relatives or friends detained on North Brother Island. 1
Many other improvements have been accomplished or planned. The Kingston Avenue Hospital, in Brooklyn, has been repaired, and land bought in Queens and Richmond for future ambulance and disinfecting stations, as well as for small contagious-disease hospitals. Poor parents are no longer left in doubt as to where
1 Since this was written such an open-air camp has been opened (May, 1903).
- The Health Department of the City of New York, Compiled by the City Club,
1902, p. 37.
