IRB Media Summary of David M. Oshinsky's Bellevue

Annotation

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 At the southern tip of Fifth Avenue, in the heart of Greenwich Village, sits the leafy oasis known as Washington Square. It has been a landmark for New Yorkers for years, but its iconic arch, imposing fountain, and flowered walkways provide no hint of its tumultuous past.#2 The first hospital in North America was built in Philadelphia in 1752. However, many consider Bellevue to be the first, as it was built on the site of a small infirmary built for soldiers overcome by bad smells and filth in colonial America.#3 The land they chose had a checkered past. It had first belonged to a Dutch settler named Jacobus Kip, who built a house there in 1641. In the 1700s, Kip's heirs had divided the land, selling one parcel to a local merchant who named it Bel-Vue for its rolling fields and river vistas.#4 Yellow fever is a disease transmitted by the bite of the female Aedes aegypti mosquito. It first appeared in the Americas in the summer of 1793, when it struck Philadelphia, the young nation's capital. It would kill thousands of people in New York City in the summer of 1795.