New York Cancer Hospital

The striking castle-like building you see at 455 Central Park West was designed in 1887 as the first hospital in the United States dedicated exclusively to the treatment of cancer. Architect Charles Coolidge Haight drew inspiration from the chateaus of the French Loire Valley, opting for a style that would provide a dignified and uplifting environment for patients who were often stigmatized by the disease. The building's unusual circular towers were driven by strict medical theories of the nineteenth century rather than mere aesthetics. Doctors at the time believed that germs and disease-causing filth collected in sharp, ninety-degree corners, so Haight designed circular wards to eliminate these spaces entirely. Each tower also featured a vertical air shaft in its center, which was intended to constantly draw out stagnant air and prevent the accumulation of odors associated with the illness. The hospital was a result of a desperate medical climate, as many existing institutions at the time outright refused to treat cancer patients. Prominent New Yorkers, including the Astor family, funded the project after seeing loved ones suffer from the disease. Because the diagnosis of cancer was often a terminal one in that era, the facility even included a crematorium in its basement, a feature whose original smokestack can still be seen on the property today. After the hospital moved to the East Side in the mid-twentieth century and became the foundation for what is now the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, this building entered a long period of decay. It functioned for a time as a nursing home that eventually became notorious for neglect and scandals. By the nineteen-eighties, the structure sat largely abandoned, earning the nickname the castle from locals who watched it fall into ruins. It was eventually saved from demolition, gut-renovated, and transformed into the luxury condominiums that stand here today.