THE City Planning Commis sion is set to vote today on the Hospital for Special Surgery’s bid to expand in the East 70s. It should OK the plan – but not without making the hospital address the traffic mess by FDR Drive.
The distinguished 145-year- old hospital for orthopedics and rheumatology relocated to its site on the East River in 1955. In the early ’70s, the Lindsay administration granted it (and Rockefeller University and New York-Presbyterian Hospital) air rights to build large additions over the highway.
That was a controversial decision – but the right one. Let these great institutions build eastward, over the highway, rather than try to expand westward into residential neighborhoods.
Now, HSS wants to enlarge its existing main buildāing by three floź¦ors and to build a deck for a new 12-story building over the FDR.
The expansion is clearly in New York’s interest. HSS is repeatedly rated as the finest orthopedic hospital in the country – yet it functions in overcrowded, cramped conditions. The expansion would yield 28 added patient beds, six new inpatient operating rooms and three new ambulatory-surgery operating rooms.
Plus, the handsoāme nš ew building, designed by Smith-Miller + Hawkinson Architects, will help hide the existing dreary yellow-brick structures.
But that traffic has to be handled.
Cars coming off FDR at 71st Street run smack into the hospital’s loading berths, which are clearly insufficient for holding all the trucks making deliveries to HSS. The trucks often block lanes – creating noisy, horn-honking, polluting gridlock.
“HSS has essentially turned East 71st Street into its private loading berth,” contends neighborhood activist Dennis C. Alex, not unfairly. “This area is so burdened with traffic now that ambulances [from other hospitals – HSS has none] can’t get through the congestion.”
Councilmember Jessica Lappin represents the East Side – and like all involved elected officials, supports the expansion. But she notes that traffic is so bad, especially on York Avenue, that the Department of Transportation initiated a study even before the hospital proposed this expansion.
HSS doesn’t deny the charges so much as it counters that its loading docks meet the zoning definitions and that its new construction won’t make things worse. Indeed, it wants not only to build – but also to escape of the zoning requirement that the new building come with an new loading berth.
Sorry. If the city doesn’t force HSS to address truck traffic now, it will lose its leverage; it’s a lot easier to incorporate a loading bay into the plans before construction starts.
But there’s a larger issue: New York is crowded – Manhattan, in particular, is densely developed. An institution wanting to insert a large building into this or any fully developed neighborhood has to think about how to make things better – not just maintain the chaos that has emerged from decisions over the years.
Traffic is probably already close to intolerable all along the length of what The New York Times once called “Hospital Land” – from 72nd to 62nd Streets and from First Avenue to the FDR.
New development can bring wealth, jobs, prestige and vitality. But it can also overload public services – especially roads, public transit and parks.
HSS has responded with some excellent operational innovations – using its security force to direct and move traffic, staggering delivery hours, working with neighboring institutions to share facilities. But the beauty of construction is that it can offer permanent solutions – and enough space for trucks is one of them.
Julia Vitullo-Martin is Manhattan Institute senior fellow.