The Hassenfeld family has donated $50 million to NYU Langone Medical Center to fund the creation of the Hassenfeld Pediatric Center, a dedicated children's hospital scheduled to be built on the East Side of Manhattan.
NYU Langone Medical Center and the Hassenfeld family unveiled a $50 million gift October 2 that will create a comprehensive pediatric hospital at NYU Langone Medical Center. The $50 million gift from the Hassenfeld family, led by longtime NYU Langone Medical Center trustee Sylvia Hassenfeld, spans three generations and underscores the family's belief in both giving back and to children.
"Their extraordinary gift to create the Hassenfeld Pediatric Center begins a new era of children's health care in New York and helps ensure bright futures for countless children, our most precious patients, and their families," said Robert I. Grossman, MD, dean and CEO of NYU Langone Medical Center.
The announcement was made during a festive celebration at the Intrepid Sea, Air, & Space Museum that was attended by more than 1,000 children, parents, and grandparents, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Barbara Walters, who served as the mistress of ceremonies at the family-friendly event.
The gift will help create the Hassenfeld Pediatric Center, a new 160,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art pediatric hospital on the Medical Center's main campus on the east side of Manhattan. Integral to the design of the pediatric hospital will be all private rooms, making it the only pediatric inpatient facility in Manhattan to have this feature. Private rooms increase patient safety by decreasing exposure to infections, as well as serve to provide a private, supportive environment for the patients and their families. In addition, the new Hassenfeld Pediatric Center will boast:
- A separate, dedicated Hassenfeld Pediatric Center entrance on 34th Street and 1st Avenue, featuring a child-friendly lobby
- Child-friendly pre-operative unit consisting of private, pre-op preparation and recovery bays, with space for family at the bedside, along with pediatric ORs, a catheterization lab, and two procedure rooms
- Dedicated acute pediatric inpatient and pediatric critical care units where each of the 68 private rooms will have their own en suite bathrooms, as well as include a "family zone" featuring a sleep-in couch, storage, and Web access
- A Family Center for orientation activities for patients, space for child-life activities and performances, as well as support, education, and respite services for families
The facility will be located within the new Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Pavilion, scheduled to open in late 2017.
