Squatters Claim Greenpoint Hospital After 30 Years Of Stalled Development, Reports Say

GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN — The abandoned nurses’ quarters in the former Greenpoint Hospital have been taken over by squatter, according to reports.

Cooper Park Houses residents told DNAinfo New York that homeless people with dogs are have been getting into the abandoned building on Maspeth and Debevoise avenues through an unlocked door for weeks, scaring kids and seniors who visit a nearby park.

This is just another chapter in a three-decade long saga to restore the historic hospital to its former glory.

The hospital, constructed in 1914, hosted famous patients such as Detective Frank Serpico and Andrew Carnegie's activist daughter Margaret.

When Greenpoint Hospital closed in 1982, a space became a “dumping ground,” the New York Times reported.

In 2012, Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to turn the building into subsidized apartments on the site, but his attempts were foiled when the contractor was arrested on bribery charges, according to a New York Daily News report.

Mayor Bill de Blasio also promised to bring affordable housing to the old hospital site — as part of his agenda to amp up subsidized units across New York City — and organized a series of community outreach workshops to brainstorm redevelopment ideas.

But the project was stalled, literally, by dirty laundry — the development could not begin until the Department of Homeless Services found another place to keep its laundry facility which it housed on the grounds, the Brooklyn Paper reported in February, 2016.

In December, the Department of Housing and Preservation promised Community Board 1 the city would revamp its efforts in January 2017 with a formal request for project proposals, but that never materialized, DNAinfo reported.

A Housing Preservation and Development spokeswoman told DNAinfo that the request would be sent out this summer, but would not answer further questions.

Photo courtesy of GoogleMaps/Aug. 2014