St. James Hospital

By the late 1800s there were already several hospitals operaring in and around the city of Newark. However, none of them were in the Ironbound district. The closest was St. Michaels up Central Avenue, still a fair distance away. A new facility was being planned for the Ironbound, but there weren't enough women to provide nursing support. Eventually ground would break for the new building, dubbed St. James Hospital.

Source

The hospital opened in 1900, on a parcel of land directly behind the St. James Church on Jefferson Street. The building itself was relatively modest, but did boast its own chapel. The hospital building was attached to the school, which at the time was on Madison Street. After a few decades the original building was rendered obsolete, so a new building was opened across the street in 1961. 

The original hospital and school buildings were subsequently demolished. A new school building was built two years later, on the land the original hospital once stood on. The next few decades would be difficult for the St. James parish. In 1979 the beautiful church building, designed by the legendary Patrick Keeley, was demolished. The parish claimed the building was too expensive to maintain. In a city marred by the demolition of some of its greatest buildings, this one stands out among the others. To add insult to injury, the gorgeous building was replaced by a parking garage. The entire campus was now architecturally unremarkable. 

The hospital continued to operate mostly as an emergency hospital for workers injured in nearby factories and roadways. The third floor was used for psychiatric patients. It had a small enclosed balcony, I assume for patients and staff to smoke without leaving the secure ward. The facility merged with 2 other hospitals in the 2000's, St. Michaels and Columbus hospital. The trio became known as the Cathedral Health Network. 

Shortly after merging, St. James and Columbus health were shuttered. The facility officially shut its doors in 2008, though some services were still being offered out of a small building across the parking lot from the main structure. The basement was reopened as a health clinic in 2010, which operated until the Covid 19 pandemic forced the city to consolidate services.

The upper floors of the hospital had already been gutted for years, leaving very little of the past to find. Then in 2021 it was announced that the hospital was set to be renovated and reopened by the Newark School District as an architecture school. 

I visited the structure alone one morning, before any work had been done to convert the building to the school. It didn't take long, as the building was painfully empty. I was still glad to be able to visit this piece of Newark history before it changed any further. The once grand legacy of the St. James parish has been so heavily reduced that one could now pass by without even knowing it was there. I wouldn't be surprised if parish consolidations force the closure of St James within the decade.