Samuel Berg Collection on Newark City Hospital (Martland Medical Center), A Guide to the

For several years until 1882, the City of Newark was without its own municipal hospital. Instead, a total of ten beds were maintained at St. Michael's, St. Barnabas and the German Hospitals for the care of the indigent sick and injured. Seeing a need for better facilities, a City Hospital was organized by obtaining the use of the north wing of the Almshouse located on the corner of Elizabeth Avenue and Concord Street. With 25 beds, the hospital was opened to the sick on September 4, 1882 and was incorporated on February 23, 1883. In its first year, the hospital staff cared for 267 patients and only 30 of them died. In its early days, City Hospital treated mostly contagious diseases, but 118 operations were performed in the first eight months of service. In its second year City Hospital was moved to the former Insane Asylum building on Fairmont Avenue.

By the late 1880's the hospital had outgrown its second home, which was torn down in phases, and replaced by a red brick structure. Construction of the new hospital began in 1898; the hospital was occupied in 1890. In 1914 a new five-story residence facility was open for the student nurses on Fairmont Avenue across from the hospital, which was vacated in 1983. It was the first permanent Nurses Home that the students had since the school began in 1885. In 1925, the hospital was enlarged by the addition of the north wing, a four-story structure with a basement. The hospital now consisted of a central building with two wings and adjoining solaria, each four-stories high with a basement, and the north wing.

Between 1930 and 1944 there does not appear to have been any marked changes in either the City Hospital or the School of Nursing. A psychiatric affiliation with Marlboro State Hospital was added in 1950. A communicable disease affiliation with Essex County Isolation Hospital was set up in 1950, then discontinued in 1956. The psychiatric affiliation was changed to Essex County Hospital at Cedar Grove in 1956.

To cope with the rising demands of the large post war migrations of poverty-stricken people to Newark, construction began in 1954 of a new 17-story hospital with 750 beds. The City of Newark dedicated the new hospital the Harrison S. Martland Medical Center, in honor of the prominent pathologist, Dr. Harrison Stanford Martland(1883-1954),* who had served the city for 28 years as pathologist for the hospital and as Essex County Medical Examiner. The $13 million hospital, located behind the 1900 structure and facing Bergen Street, was completed in May 1958. From 1956 to 1964 total yearly admissions, births andclinic visits almost doubled. In 1962 the hospital's name was changed back to Newark City Hospital. From 1960 through 1967 the hospital had numerous problems including collections, accreditation, poor housekeeping, sanitation, community criticism and work condition protests. On July 1, 1968 the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry assumed operation of the hospital and renamed the entire complex the Martland Hospital Unit of the NJ College of Medicine and Dentistry. In 1969 the hospital had 773 beds, 1340 employees, cared for 22,000 inpatients and had approximately 150,000 outpatient visits. Martland Hospital served as the primary teaching facility for the College until it was replaced by the CMDNJ-College Hospital in 1979 (now, University of Medicine and Dentistry of Dew Jersey (UMDNJ) and University Hospital). The old Newark City Hospital was torn down some time after 1958; the Nurses Home building was demolished in 1994.