How Jewish Visionaries Shaped One of New York’s Most Influential Hospital Campuses
For many children born in Queens, life begins at Long Island Jewish Medical Center [LIJ], the sprawling campus of hospitals straddling the border of Queens and Nassau County. At its entrance is a massive sculpture by Keith Haring depicting yellow and red figures balancing atop a larger blue figure doing a handstand, a playful work designed to represent the children’s hospital. As one circles around for parking or awaits an update on the health of a loved one, a visit to LIJ can serve as a lesson on history and public art.
Today, LIJ is part of the Northwell Health network, the largest private employer in the state. But as is the case with NewYork-Presbyterian on Main Street – which many people still call by its old name, Booth [Memorial Hospital] – LIJ is nonsectarian and, at the same time, was founded by Jewish individuals at a time when there was widespread discrimination against hiring Jewish medical students and doctors. On a recent visit to the campus, I researched its artwork, history, and namesakes.
The children’s hospital behind Haring’s sculpture opened in 1983 under the Schneider name. Its initial benefactors were Helen and Irving Schneider. Irving was a real estate executive whose philanthropic ventures also included the Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petach Tikva, Israel. The couple supported LIJ since the hospital’s founding in 1954, with Irving serving as its board chair and Helen as a member of the hospital’s Women’s Service Guild, Women’s Comprehensive Health Center, and the Ronald McDonald House located on the LIJ campus. The Schneiders pulled their name from the LIJ children’s hospital in 2010 to focus on the children’s hospital in Israel, which was modeled on LIJ.
Shortly afterward, Steven and Alexandra Cohen stepped up to fund the children’s hospital. Steve, as he’s known, made his fortune in hedge funds and now is the owner of the New York Mets. A local product, he was the third child in a family of eight, growing up in Great Neck.
The oldest part of the LIJ complex is the Zucker Hillside Hospital, which focuses on mental health. Its namesakes, Donald and Barbara Zucker, made their wealth in real estate, using it to benefit this hospital and others in the Northwell network. Outside this building is a sculpture by Jewish artist Robin Antar, titled David’s Knot in Flames, installed in 2015. It honors her son, who was a patient at this hospital from the age of eight.
“The sculpture is a knot because he had a very hard life,” Antar said at the sculpture’s dedication. “Then the knot breaks open into an eternal flame.”
Hillside Hospital arrived in eastern Queens in 1941, after founder Dr. Israel Strauss relocated it from its original location in Hastings-on-Hudson. Governor Herbert Lehman sent a congratulatory letter to Strauss, which was read at the dedication ceremony. “It is very evident to me that in spite of the humane and enlightened point of view and interest of the people of the State, it is not possible adequately to care for all cases of mental disorders in our State institutions,” he wrote. “There are many cases where privately endowed hospitals for the mentally ill are serving a splendid purpose and curing or greatly improving the condition of many patients. Hillside Hospital is such an institution.”
Strauss served as president of the American Neurological Association and the Committee for Mental Hygiene Among Jews, and as a member of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Diseases. He is believed to be the first Jew to graduate from Brown University. Even after retiring from Hillside Hospital in 1938, he remained an attending neurologist at Mount Sinai Hospital, Montefiore Hospital, and Maimonides Hospital – all of which were founded under Jewish auspices. Strauss died in his office in 1955 at age 81, working in mental health to the very end.
Around that time, LIJ was built next to Hillside and later merged with it to create the medical superblock. Box manufacturer Saul Epstein led an initial committee of 120 local philanthropists, a number reminiscent of the ancient Sanhedrin and the modern Israeli Knesset, which purchased the plot and broke ground on LIJ. Under the Hill-Burton Act of 1946, for every two dollars raised by philanthropy, the federal government contributed one dollar. It spurred a wave of new hospitals across the country during the postwar baby boom.
“Such a hospital would provide sorely needed training opportunities for young Jewish doctors who found doors difficult to open elsewhere,” an internal memo stated.
On the eastern side of the LIJ campus is the curved glass façade of the Katz Women’s Hospital and the Zuckerberg Pavilion, the latter having no relation to the Facebook founder. Its philanthropic namesake is former Goldman Sachs partner Roy J. Zuckerberg. Fellow donor Saul Katz made his wealth in hedge funds and real estate. He also roots for the Mets, purchasing the team in 1980, which he sold to Cohen in 2020. His wife, Iris, is the sister of former Mets owner Fred Wilpon.
Facing this building is the sunken Peace Garden planted in memory of 9/11 victims, with an octagonal pole on which the phrase “May peace prevail on earth” appears in multiple languages. The Nassau County border runs along a driveway at the eastern end of this garden.
On the opposite spectrum of the life cycle, the Parker Jewish Institute stands on the invisible city line, providing rehabilitation, palliative, and hospice care. The building’s namesake, Jack Parker, was a real estate developer whose family-owned company also owned the Le Parker Meridien Hotel in Midtown, resorts in Palm Springs and Costa Rica, among many other properties. His imprint on the Queens landscape includes houses built on the site of Bayside Golf Course and the Parker Towers in Forest Hills, designed for the middle class of the 1950s.
The names of LIJ have made a lasting impact on the city’s culture, landscape, finances, and even the major league baseball franchise in Queens. But their most important philanthropic endeavor relates to the highest mitzvah: the life-saving work of this hospital campus, whose Jewish name serves as a kiddush Hashem for everyone.