Lying-In Hospital, New York City

[theoldwolf]

305 Second Avenue, New York, NY.

The hospital where I was born no longer exists as such but has an interesting history. When I entered the world it was still functioning as a birthing hospital, and in fact the facade gives a clue to its former function.


Notice the babies above the doorway.


These tondos grace the entrance and also appear between the rows of windows above the 5th floor.

The tondos were modeled after those that adorn the building that launched Renaissance architecture and saved many abandoned children, Brunelleschi's Spedale degli innocenti, also known as "I figli di nessuno" (the children of no-one).



This stroll down memory lane was brought to mind by an image over at Teresa Burritt's Frog Blog.

Comments

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

Haha! I think it was like the bloody rags that became a barber pole type of thing...

[phantomdiver.livejournal.com]

Those were bloody rags? See, it looks like a two-year-old. Children of that age are rarely surrounded by bloody rags. (Don't know if you knew that.)