The hospital center in Orange dates back to 1873 when a disused firehouse on Lincoln Avenue was donated to a group looking to start a hospital. There were several hospitals a few miles away in Newark, but as the city began to grow they needed their own. Just a year after being founded, the firehouse was proving to be inefficient for caring for the sick. A home a few blocks away was rented out and became the new Orange Memorial Hospital. At this point in the late 1800's it was quite common for hospitals to function out of houses. The old
Presbyterian Hospital just down Central Avenue started out the same way, as did the
Elizabeth General Hospital. The
Jersey City Medical Center also used houses as temporary hospital space as that campus began to develop. However, as was always the case, the hospital outgrew the houses and needed an even larger structure. In 1881 local philanthropist Joseph Whipple Stickler donated the land on South Essex Avenue for the construction of a new hospital. The following year the new structure was operational.
In 1885 a training school was built for nurses adjacent to the new hospital building. The nurses were required to put in time at Orange Memorial as part of the program. The hospital was expanding rapidly, and a new structure called the "North Building" was built in 1906. The same year the hospital had absorbed the school, and it became the Orange Memorial Hospital School of Nursing thirteen years later. The North building quicky became crowded, and an addition was completed in 1908. North is the oldest extant building on the property, at the corner of Central Avenue and South Essex Streets.
The bolier house with its iconic chimney was built in 1912, and in 1914 the service building was built. The new structure was designed by famed NYC hospital architects Crow, Lewis, and Wick. The service building had a new kitchen, dining halls, and dormitory space for staff. This was critical as the patient population of the hospital soared to nearly 2000.
The maternity department operating out of the North Building was one of the most active parts of the complex. The hospital sought to answer the growing demand for maternity care by constructing the Bingham Building in 1920 in a colonial revivial style. The new wing was named for noted obstetrician Arthur Walter Bingham. Crow, Lewis & Wick were once again called in to design the new structure, which was intended to be able to support maternity services for the foreseeable future. Despite that, the building was already at capacity when it opened.
Two years later, the hospital began raising money to expand their campus to better serve the community. The two million dollar goal was reached before long, with a large percentage of the donations coming from city residents and staff from the hospital. A few years later, new buildings started popping up. The most notable structure from this expansion was Mary Austen Hall, which was a dormitory for the student nurses built in 1928. The original nurses residence was demolished in order to accomidate the structure.
The surgical building was erected the following year. The size of the hospital at this time construction was finished was 80,000 square feet.
In 1931 the Metcalf Foundation opened a state of the art radiological building on the campus. The foundation was also able to conduct cancer research in their new structure. Sources state that Metcalf was the only radiology department in north Jersey that would accomidate indigent patients. The hospital had been gaining a reputation as one of the innovative and advanced medical centers in the region. The sewing department was even responsible for making doctors masks and other fabric products for the hospital.
In 1950 an additional floor was added to the service building, Bingham building, Mary Austen hall, and surgical building. The Orthopedic center was constructed in 1960. Orange Memorial Hospital had merged with the New Jersey Orthopedic Hospital two years prior, and the NJOH needed a space at the hospital. Despite being a complete departure architecturally from the rest of the colonial revival hospital, the new wing was designed by William H Crow Jr., the son of one of the original architects. The 1960's and 1970's brought a lot of change to the hospital. In 1965, large additions were added to the tops of the surgical building and the building constructed by the Metcalf Institute. Instead of making an effort to blend the additions as was done in 1950, these new sections of building were clad in ugly red siding which brought the aesthetic value of the entire complex down. An old building along Henry Street was demolished and a new entrance was built on S. Essex Avenue. In 1975 the new "professional" building added space for doctors offices. The professional building is by far the most ugly building on the grounds.
Over the years the facility started to decline. By 1998, the hospital was purchased on the brink of bankrupcy by Cathedral Health Systems in Newark. However, they didn't take on the hospitals existing debt. In 2002 the emergency room was shut down by the state health department due to unsanitary conditions and improper cleaning of tools. Despite over a century of history serving the community, the hospital center was shuttered in 2004 after a vote by the board of directors. The buildings remained vacant, slowly deteriorating until the city of Orange was designated a "Transit Village". This label allows for increased redevelopment of vacant property through tax incentives. Around 2015 news came about that the hospital was going to be fully renovated and reborn as apartments. Before any development could occur, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. No work has been done since then. In 2019, several dead bodies were found inside the blighted building. It didn't make the news, but it did convince the city to order the building secured. Crews went around the hospital putting plywood on all the potential entrances to the crumbling complex. I sincerely hope I can soon add a happy ending to this post in the future, if the redevelopment ever happens. Until then it will stand empty as a symbol of the failure of the American healthcare system.
