Smallpox Hospital, on Roosevelt Island, first opened its doors and turned down its hundred beds a century and a half ago. It ministered to paying patients and charity cases alike. Designed by architect James Renwick Jr. and built by inmates from the island's prison, the hospital attempted to contain contagion inside crenellated turrets and gray granite. Once imposing and fanciful, a vest-pocket castle presiding over an unhealthy stretch of the East River, it has since fallen to ruin. A chain-link fence encloses it and wooden struts prop up its ivy-infested walls. If New York is ever still or somber enough to achieve the gothic, it achieves it here. In the hospital's shadow, director Deborah Warner begins her bittersweet... More >>>