ENGLEWOOD HOSPITAL AND MEDICAL CENTER
ENGLEWOOD
1888
IN THE BEGINNING
22
2019 EDITION (201) HEALTH
1943
TOUGH EXPANSION
The site seen here in June 1964,
was set to become the main
entrance to Englewood Hospital
after the expansion program
was completed.
In 1943, during World War II, a postwar construction project was drawn up for a
three- to five-story wing to add 235 beds to the existing 238. The hospital president,
A. Summer Gambee, approached the project with caution, however, as noted by
The Record editorial staff on Dec. 4, 1943.
Fundraising was a tough ask at the time, and only $356,000 was collected by
February, 1947. The following year, officials had settled on a $2.2 million expansion. The
project started in 1953, the end of a seven-year stretch that saw hospital care costs double.
Amid construction, yet another fundraising campaign began to replace the old clinic,
which was knocked down in 1954.
When completed in 1955, the $2.9 million West Wing added 100 beds, bringing its
capacity to 300. The following year, hospital officials embarked on a $7 million program to
expand the new wing. The program demolished Pierce Hall to make room for new nursing,
pediatric and emergency facilities. It was completed in 1965. At 75 years old, the hospital
had 394 beds and plans to grow even further.
Incorporated in April 1888, The
Englewood Hospital Association was
launched to provide care for the residents
of Harrington, Palisades and Ridgefield
townships. While those towns no longer
exist, the mission remains.
The first president, Sarah Homans, was
among many prominent Englewood resi-
dents to back the hospital with a modest
$5,000 construction budget.
The hospital’s three-acre plot sand-
wiched between Engle Street’s Englewood
Field Club and the railroad tracks that now
border Dean Street cost about $1,050. On
it went a wooden facility with two 28-foot-
long by 12-foot-wide wings flanking a
double-wide central administration area.
The first patient was admitted on June
25, 1890. In the first year, the hospital had
75 patients, one death and a $463 profit.
Within two years, hospital officials executed
an expansion. By 1900, there were 19 beds.
The purchase of an adjacent property in
1906 allowed the hospital to have separate
receiving and maternity wards. Continued
growth sparked the first fundraiser for an
expansion; it collected $133,000, permit-
ting the construction of a new three-story
building and a contagious disease pavilion
in 1915.
Starting in 1918, the hospital began
leasing the Englewood Inn to house nurses
in training at the hospital’s school of nurs-
ing, which was established in 1896.
Renamed Pierce Hall, it housed nurses
until 1929. In 1925, an increase in patients
sparked another fundraising program that
raised $1 million to build and equip what
is now the hospital’s East Wing.
The 200-bed hospital opened a separate
nursing school in 1930, and in 1935, a
two-floor maternity wing capable of
housing 42 infants.