When the light changed Mitt scurried across the avenue. Reaching the safety of the curb on the east side, he stopped for a moment to gaze up at the strangely impressive building on the southeastern corner of First Avenue and 30th Street. Surrounding the sizable ten-story structure was an imposing and oddly decorative rusty wrought iron fence whose granite stanchions were topped with concrete urns. The barricade was so substantial and unique that it begged the question of whether its role was to keep people out or in.
The building itself was red brick with granite highlights and lots of curious decorative architectural details that looked particularly out of date in contemporary New York City. It was the antithesis of a typical NYC glass skyscraper. But what was most glaring about the building was that it was so obviously abandoned, save for a small portion down near the East River that Mitt knew was being used as a men’s homeless shelter. The rest of the structure’s enormity was empty, and had been so for more than thirty years. The windows on the granite-encased first floor were boarded up, and a small garden area in front of the two wings that faced First Avenue was entirely overgrown with weeds and vines. And like so many New York City buildings, its first floor was partially covered by scaffolding.
Mitt was well aware that he was looking at the former Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, which had been called the Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital when it opened back in the 1930s. He was somewhat knowledgeable about the building because it was where his celebrated ancestor Dr. Clarence Fuller, who had spent most of his professional career at Bellevue, had his office. When Mitt had come for his residency interview, he’d seen the structure and had taken the time to look up its history. When the six-hundred-bed facility had opened nearly a hundred years previously, it had been the talk of the town and quickly became the most famous psychiatric hospital in the world. In many ways, it was the reason the name Bellevue had become synonymous with a mental institution rather than a comprehensive medical facility, which it had always been.
Continuing southward, Mitt walked into the cool shadow the building’s looming size provided. He paused again at the wrought iron gate that was secured with a heavy chain and weighty padlock. Looking between the rusting wrought iron uprights, he gazed at the building’s rather decorative entranceway, secured with its own chain and padlock. For a moment, he was transfixed; there was something remarkably sad about the portal. Mitt pondered the innumerable poor souls who had passed through to be essentially incarcerated in the building, and he found himself imagining what kind of painful stories they might tell.
At the same moment, he felt a surprising, transient surge of the tactile sensations that he normally associated with his prognostication abilities. The feelings were a particular surprise because he wasn’t facing a circumstance that called for a prediction. Nor was there another human being whose thoughts he could sense because he was essentially alone facing an empty structure. A few passersby hurried behind him in both directions, but for him to sense someone’s thoughts, he had to make eye contact with them, which certainly wasn’t the case.
With a mystified shrug, he forced himself to pull his eyes away from the deserted building and continue on his way. Time was passing, and the last thing Mitt wanted to do was be late on his first day. Yet he couldn’t resist one last quick look over his shoulder at the old Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, wondering how the building had managed to avoid being demolished or repurposed after the last of its psychiatric patients had been transferred over to the newer high-rise. He’d read that more than a decade earlier there had been some talk of turning it into a hotel and conference center for the NYU medical center, which would be an easy conversion with its unique letter H footprint and hundreds of individual rooms, each with windows. Yet obviously it hadn’t happened. Why, he had no idea. The building’s continued existence as a sad, empty shell made no sense. It was a total anachronism and also an affront to its illustrious history.
Chapter 3
Monday, July 1, 7:11 a.m.
Along with a sizable throng of other people, Mitt entered the I. M. Pei — designed combination lobby and Ambulatory Care Pavilion of Bellevue Hospital. Although the hour was still early, the place was already hopping with a mixture of patients and staff and a smattering of homeless people. And once he was inside the expansive, multistory glass-topped vestibule, he was in for a pleasant surprise. The entire red-brick, marble, and granite façade of the previous-turn-of-the-century McKim, Mead & White — designed Bellevue Administration building had been preserved and incorporated into the interior of the 2005 structure. To get into the hospital itself, he had to walk under the original granite archway encompassing a high relief seal of the city of New York.
As he passed under the old archway, he was in for a second surprise. Mitt felt yet another unexpected flush of strange sensations on his arms, thighs, and chest that were even more pronounced than what he’d experienced a few minutes earlier, strong enough to make him stop abruptly in his tracks. Unfortunately, his sudden halt caused several hurrying people to run into him, causing a minor pedestrian pileup.
“Sorry, sorry,” Mitt repeated to those he’d blocked in the relatively narrow passage. He stepped out of the way, again totally confused as to why he was experiencing such sensations when previously they’d always been associated with recognized stimuli. He looked behind him at the faces of the people coming into the hospital, as if someone might explain to him why he was experiencing what he was, but obviously that didn’t happen. A few hospital staff briefly glanced in Mitt’s direction as they hurried past. All had expressions he interpreted as mild irritation. In truth, he didn’t have any idea why he was experiencing these sensations, and he imagined his face probably reflected his confusion. Adding to it was a vague feeling of foreboding that he also couldn’t explain.
But then as quickly as the new paresthesias appeared, they disappeared. With mild bewilderment and a slight shake of his head, he rejoined the moving crowd. A few minutes later, he and a sizable group of people crammed into one of the many elevators.
The ride up took more time than Mitt had allotted because the car stopped on just about every floor. Each time, there was an uncomfortably long pause before the doors deigned to close, heightening his unease. Mitt found himself checking his watch on several occasions, as if doing so would speed things up, but it didn’t.
No one spoke during the entire elevator ride. Everyone was either silently watching the floor indicator or checking their mobile phones. Finally on the fifteenth floor, several people pushed to get off along with Mitt.
Immediately upon exiting, Mitt asked one of the hurrying staff, obviously a nurse, if she knew where the surgical conference room was located. She was a middle-aged, friendly-looking Black woman whose hair was tightly cornrowed.
“I most certainly do,” she said brightly. “Follow me! I’m going right by it.” She waved over her shoulder as she headed out of the elevator lobby. “Are you one of the new surgical residents?” she asked, glancing back at Mitt as she walked.
“I am,” he responded. “Is it so obvious?”
“Your pristine outfit,” the woman said with a gleeful laugh. “It’s a giveaway. Besides, it is the first day of July, and we nurses all know what that means in relation to the house staff.”
“I can imagine. It’s probably the most dangerous day for patients in teaching hospitals across the country.”
“Ha, ha! You got that right.”
“Are you a nurse on the surgical service?”