VBMC History: Home

An archival collection is maintained on the history of Vassar Brothers Medical Center, formerly known as Vassar Brothers Hospital, and the VBH School of Nursing. Items of interest include the original Board meeting minutes from 1884-1924, original accounting ledger from 1887-1900, hundreds of photographs, medical items, and School of Nursing transcriptions and yearbooks. 

Send an inquiry via e-mail, or call 845-437-3121.  Open to history students and historians by appointment.

1887 1950

1987

Opening of the Hospital - April 11, 1887

Structures built after the main hospital -- Horse barn and perimeter stone wall

Employees -- 1 head nurse, 2 bedside nurses, 1 cook, 1 gardener, 1 maintenance man, 1 supervisor

Ambulance -- 1892 - one-horse carriage with lamp; to be used for hospital patient transport; purchase price = $550

Library --  4,000 volumes purchased from an MD's private collection in Sing-Sing, Westchester Cty; called "The Fisher Library"

Library/Board Room and Nursing Residence building [Home I] -- 1897

First major building addition -- Corridors 1-4 for patient care, surgery, x-ray, laboratory and medical records, 1924

VBMC Historical Milestones

• Opening Day - April 11, 1887
• First patient admitted on April 23, 1887
• Two nurses receive certificates of nursing - 1890
• Four-story corridor addition - 1924
• Mary Tower Memorial Home - 1934
• Updated Kitchen - 1940
• Joseph T. Tower Memorial School and Home - 1949
• Community Circle - 1950
• Coronary Care Unit - 1968
• South Circle - 1968
• Center for Radiation Oncology - 1974
• Head and Full Body CT Scanner - 1977
• Intensive Care Unit - June 1982
• Respiratory Care Unit - November 1986
• Neonatal Intensive Care Unit - January 1992
• Open Heart Surgery - April 2000
• Dyson Center for Cancer Care - December 2001
• Name change from Hospital to Medical Center - June 2002
• High Risk Pregnancy Center - December 2008
• Aronzon Center for Ambulatory Surgery - May 2012
• Level II Trauma  - March 2016
• Groundbreaking for new patient pavilion - September 2016
• Opening day for patient pavilion - January 8, 2021

Chef Roble was interviewed by Katie on 4/15/14 The Katie Show.  He spoke of his grandfather's legacy and showed a photo of his grandfather as a chef in the kitchen of Vassar Brothers Hospital in the 1960s. 

Photo at left - image from HRVH

Photo at right - Chef Roble & Katie Couric, with Chef Harris in background image

View the clip from The Katie Show below: