Founded in 1849, the now-closed St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan is the former flagship hospital of the Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers health care system. A major teaching hospital, St. Vincent’s closed its doors on April 30, 2010. This historic hospital treated cholera epidemic victims in 1849, as well as victims of the RMS Titanic sinking in 1912. St. Vincent's was the primary admitting hospital for victims of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks in 2001.
St. Vincent’s Hospital derived its name from the 17th-century priest St. Vincent de Paul, famed for his charity to the poor. After New York Hospital and Bellevue Hospital, it was the third-oldest hospital in the city prior to its closing. In 2009, St. Vincent’s treated patients from the famous Hudson River crash water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 – a 150-passenger flight – with no fatalities.
The hospital also established the first mobile coronary care unit in the United States. It was a New York Medical College academic medical center at the time of its closing. St. Vincent’s Hospital merged with Catholic Medical Centers of Brooklyn and Queens in 2000 to form the SVCMC network. The entire SVCMC system filed for bankruptcy in 2005.