The Brooklyn Hospital — 1981 modernization project
Another contractor's archive independently confirms Joseph's 1981 Brooklyn Hospital job—and preserves two folders that may tell us what was actually being built.

Brooklyn Hospital Center. Photographed in 2011; a current view, not a construction-period photograph.
Current view · 2011 · Photo: Youngking11 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
Why this project matters
- Project identity
- Verified
- Kelly connection
- Family source
- Masonry scope
- Probable
Rita’s list

Transcription: Brooklyn Hospital — 1981
Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record
KM-153
2 of two
“Brooklyn Hospital — 1981”
The Adler & Neilson collection has two separate 1981 Brooklyn Hospital folders, while hospital records show the institution was modernizing just before its 1982 merger with Caledonian.
A clean example of construction archaeology through business records: Rita's shorthand and another subcontractor's archive independently converge on the same hospital and year.
What Kelly did here
Family source
Probable
Likely: most likely CMU/concrete-block partitions, shafts, stair/elevator enclosures and other fire-rated/service walls; exterior brick or masonry backup is also plausible where the hospital addition used a masonry facade.
This scope is recorded as probable, not documented. It is a disciplined reading of the building and the trade practice of the period, not a contract-level record of Kelly’s work.
The construction team
The construction team for this job has not yet been established.
What happened to it
Still standing / active hospital campus
Sources
4 citedOpen →
- 01findingaids.library.nyu.edu
items001
- 02tbh.org
history
- 03findingaids.library.nyu.edu
arc 225 brooklyn hospital
- 04nysenate.gov
j1203
- Youngking11 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · 2011-10-16
Brooklyn Hospital Center. Photographed in 2011; a current view, not a construction-period photograph.
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Elsewhere in the archive
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Family list: “Community Hospital - Phase D”
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Hospital for Special Surgery — 1979 vertical expansion
Family list: “Hospital for Special Surgery”
Manhattan, New York