St. John The Divine Cathedral To Be Coronavirus Hospital: Reports

MORNGINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY — A massive Manhattan cathedral and its crypt will soon become a 200-patient coronavirus hospital to help fight the pandemic, according to reports.

Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue, known as the largest Gotchic cathedral in the world, will turn its massive interior and underground crypto into an emergency hospital staffed by personnel from nearby Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, the New York Times first reported.

Patients could arrive at the cathedral, which will be set up with nine climate-controlled medical tents, as early as the end of the week, church leaders told the Times. The crypt, they said, will also be set up as a "staging area" for medical personnel.

“...Traditionally, in earlier centuries, cathedrals were always used this way, like during the plague," Rt. Rev. Clifton Daniel III said. "So this is not outside the experience of being a cathedral, it is just new to us.”

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The reverend said that it is unclear whether patients with coronavirus will be sent to the cathedral, but that it is likely they will make up some of the emergency hospital's cases given the spread of the pandemic.

The Amsterdam Avenue cathedral is the latest unlikely New York City building to be tapped as an emergency hospital to fight the pandemic, which had infected 68,776 New York City residents as of Monday evening.

The Queen's Aqueduct Racetrack, the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook, the New York Expo Center in the Bronx and a facility at the College of Staten Island will also soon become emergency medical facilities, adding to an emergency hospital that opened at the Javits Center in Manhattan, Cuomo said.

An emergency hospital tent was also built in Central Park, along with similar triage tents at many of Mount Sinai's hospitals across the five boroughs.

To read the full New York Times story about the cathedral click here.

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