Led by resounding trumpets, the children from St. Mary’s Hospital for Children and their caretakers made a grand entrance into the long-awaited $114 million modernization groundbreaking ceremony on October 6 in the courtyard, which will become a new patient pavilion to be completed by 2012.
The current facility, located in Bayside, was built in the 1950s and is considered by St. Mary’s president and CEO Jeffery Frerichs to be medically “obsolete.”
“St. Mary is one of only a handful of institutions around the country dedicated to providing intensive rehabilitation, specialized care and education to children with special needs and life-limiting conditions,” said Frerichs, who considers helping children in need to be a moral commitment. “Compassionate, dedicated, caring and uncompromising medical excellence; you feel this the moment you walk through the door of the hospital.”
Some of the new facility’s features include state-of-the-art rehabilitation equipment, a new home for P.S. 23Q; the on-site education facility, an expanded entrance to accommodate ambulances, visitors and community children and 58 new parking spots to eliminate on-street parking and allow visitors better access. Even with the new parking spots, some members of the community would rather see the hospital moved out of Bayside instead of a costly renovation. A recently formed civic group known as the Weeks Woodland Association filed litigation to stop any construction at the hospital citing pollution, traffic and zoning issues.
“With any construction project of this size, there comes opposition . . . From the crowd and the turn out today, one thing is very clear: we got them greatly outnumbered,” said Frerichs.
The day’s celebration, titled “Dreams Come True in New York” and hosted by CBS news anchor Chris Wragge, featured performances by the Half Hollow Hills High School East concert choir, recording artist Jill Gioia and a special performance by St. Mary’s kids who sang “You Are My Sunshine” for the hundreds of guests in attendance. Borough President Helen Marshall, State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky and Councilmembers Dan Halloran and Mark Weprin were also on hand to help break ground during the ceremony.
Most of the children who require post-acute care returned inside the hospital during the ceremony while others in strollers and wheelchairs stayed outside to witness board members, elected officials and hospital workers ceremoniously take the first physical step toward their new facility. Halloran tried his best to sum up all the work that has been done to get the project off the ground by quoting President Ronald Reagan:
“I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s a purpose and worth to each and every life.”
