Middlesex County Tuberculosis Sanitorium

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Middlesex County Tuberculosis Sanitorium
Opened 1937
Closed 2002
Current Status Preserved
Building Style Single Building
Location Edison, NJ
Architecture Style Colonial Revival
Alternate Names
  • Roosevelt Hospital



History[edit]

Built during the Great Depression with Federal financing as the Middlesex County Tuberculosis Sanitorium, this massive four-story, Colonial Revival structure is built of red brick with limestone trim. Situated on a majestic hill overlooking a picturesque park, it has a large two-story entry porch and a grand 46-foot high center cupola. Today, Roosevelt Hospital stands as a grand monument to the New Deal, to the history of public health efforts, and to the era when tuberculosis was a menace. The building remained a tuberculosis hospital until the 1950s, when antibiotics decreased the ferocity of the disease, after which the hospital became a long-term health care facility.

The hospital has seen two major additions over the years: in 1963, a 100-bed section was added for long-term care and outpatient treatment, and in 1982, and additional 250-bed section brought the hospital to its present capacity of over 500 beds. During the recent years, Roosevelt Hospital has been losing money, and Middlesex County officials have been negotiating to sell the property to a heathcare facility operator who wants to replce the hospital with two new 180-bed nursing homes. In 2004 Middlesex County decided to rehabilitate the original portion of the hospital as a nursing home and demolish the 1960's addition on the south side of the building. [1]

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