Loading...
Creator
Adelona, Ebun
Call number
Sc MG 367
Physical description
12.34 linear feet (30 boxes, 1 oversize folder)
Language
English
Preferred Citation
[Item], Sydenham Hospital Protest Collection, Sc MG 367, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library
Repository
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

Sydenham Hospital was an active New York City hospital from 1892 to 1980. The Sydenham Hospital Protest Collection, dating from 1967 to 1987, comprises materials Dr. Ebun Adelona gathered during her involvement in the movement against closing Sydenham and as part of research for her dissertation The Social Relations of Health. The materials include correspondence; meeting minutes and agendas; memoranda; press releases; fliers and posters; reports and proposals; legal documents; surveys, data, and other research materials; printed matter; and news clippings.

Biographical/historical information

Sydenham Hospital began operating in 1892, initially as a private facility. By the early 1900s, it consisted of nine buildings on 116th Street between First and Second Avenues. In 1927, the hospital moved to a new building at 565 Manhattan Avenue between West 123rd and 124th streets. Sydenham's staff physicians were initially all white, despite being in a primarily Black community in Harlem. In 1943, the hospital became the first in New York City to integrate and hire African American staff and trustees. In 1949, Sydenham became a part of the municipal hospital system.

Mayor Ed Koch announced in 1979 that Sydenham would be one of four New York City hospitals facing closure. This planned closure was part of a strategy to address the city's economic crisis by reducing health services. Community members and politicians saw this proposed act as a racist and classist attack on residents of Harlem, a neighborhood that then-Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Joseph Califano designated a "health disaster area" with medically underserved communities. Community members and organizations pushed back against the proposed closures with lobbying, letter writing and petition campaigns, hearings, lawsuits, and rallies. A selection of organizations involved included The Citywide Coalition to Save Our Hospitals; The Coalition to Save Sydenham Hospital, which Diane Lacey had founded in 1975 in response to earlier threats to Sydenham; Community Action for Legal Services (CALS) via Judy Wessler, health advocacy coordinator; Harlem Health Service Research and Development Corporation; and the Ad Hoc Working Group, comprising several of the above organizations. As part of their work, these groups developed demonstration proposals towards improving health services in Harlem.

The Coalition to Save Sydenham Hospital, in addition to a number of other groups, held several rallies. In mid-September 1980, when the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) ordered Sydenham's Emergency Room to close, the community took over the hospital, sleeping in the building. They occupied the hospital, while others rallied support outside the building, for approximately ten days. Clashes between police and protestors occurred. Police ultimately cleared the building of demonstrators. On November 1, 1980, Sydenham Hospital closed officially. Community advocacy, involving research studies, proposals, and campaigns, continued after the closure. However, Sydenham never reopened as a health facility and later became income-restricted housing for seniors.

Dr. Ebun Adelona (b. 1941), an anthropologist, has had a variety of professional experiences in the worlds of dance, therapy, education, administration, holistic health care, and anthropology. As a Harlem resident and health advocate, she was very involved in the movement to stop Sydenham's closure. She was a member of the Citywide Coalition to Save Our Hospitals, and a chairperson of the Ad Hoc Working Group. She received a Ph.D. in athropology from Columbia University and an M.S. in psychiatric nursing from Rutgers University.

Scope and arrangement

The Sydenham Hospital Protest Collection, dating from 1967 to 1987, comprises materials that Dr. Ebun Adelona gathered during her involvement in the movement against closing Sydenham and as part of the research for her dissertation The Social Relations of Health (Department of Anthropology, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1998). The materials include correspondence; meeting minutes and agendas; memoranda; press releases; fliers and posters; reports and proposals; legal documents; surveys, data, and other research materials; printed matter; and news clippings. The files are arranged into eight series covering topics such as historical background of Sydenham, organizations and individuals involved in the movement around Sydenham's closure, other hospitals, legal matters, as well as proposals for use of Sydenham, research files, and Adelona's dissertation.

Original folder titles provided by Adelona were preserved wherever possible. In cases where Adelona wrote notes or inventories on original folders, pieces of those folders have been preserved in the new folders alongside the materials to which they refer.

The Sydenham Hospital Protest Collection is arranged in eight series:

  • Series I. Historical Background
    circa 1967-1987
    0.42 linear feet (1 box)

    The Historical Background series contains photocopies of Sydenham-related publications giving historical context about the hospital; proposals arguing against closure of Sydenham; as well as letters, flyers, memos, press releases, news clippings, and programs covering both the 1976 threats to close Sydenham and the protests against the 1980 threats to close Sydenham.

  • Series II. Organizations
    circa 1972-1987
    2.92 linear feet (1 oversize folder, 7 boxes)

    The Organizations series contains files for over thirty organizations that participated in the movement against Sydenham's closure and proposed alternative solutions. These materials document the actions various groups took to protest Sydenham's closure and advocate for better health care in Harlem, including numerous proposals for alternate use of Sydenham as a community hospital with innovative financial backing. Organizations with a bulk of materials include the Citywide Coalition to Save Our Hospitals and its Ad-Hoc Working Group, Coalition to Save Sydenham Hospital, Community Action for Legal Services, Committee for Interns and Residents, and the Harlem Health Services Research and Development Corporation (HHSRD). Formats in the files include progress reports; funding requests and applications; meeting minutes; proposal drafts; newsletters; flyers; correspondence; memos; printed matter; reports/papers; petitions; posters; press releases; and notes.

  • Series III. Proposals for Use of Sydenham Hospital
    1979-1983
    1.25 linear feet (3 boxes)

    This series contains proposals for changes to Sydenham Hospital's services and/or management; proposals for demonstration projects to keep Sydenham and Metropolitan hospitals open; and/or for alternate uses for the hospital space. Files also include supporting materials for the proposals, such as news clippings, correspondence, position statements, notes, proposal drafts, meeting minutes, and responses to proposals. Creators of the files include Sydenham Hospital staff; the Communities of Harlem Health Care Demonstration Project and its Ad Hoc Working Group; Harlem Health Services Research and Development Corporation; Deputy Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr.; and other community organizations.

  • Series IV. Hospitals
    1970-1985
    1.67 linear feet (4 boxes, 1 oversize folder)

    The Hospitals series includes materials from various hospitals in connection with health care advocacy around the Koch-backed shut downs, specifically of Sydenham. Institutions represented include Harlem Hospital Center; Metropolitan Hospital; the overarching New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation; and Sydenham Hospital. The formats include newsclippings; reports; correspondence; newsletters; notes; pamphlets; proposals and papers; fact sheets; memos; press releases; interviews; handouts; flyers; printed matter; conference transcripts; meeting minutes/reports; and mailers.

  • Series V. Individuals
    1977-1985
    0.42 linear feet (1 box)

    The Individuals series contains files on individuals in relation to the hospital closings. Individuals represented include Ebun Adelona, Victor Botnik, Edward Koch, Diane Lacey, Charles B. Rangel, Fred Samuel, Edward Sullivan, Robert F. Wagner, Jr., and Judy Wessler. The files contain correspondence to, from, and about the individuals; news clippings/full articles featuring the individuals; testimony for public meetings/hearings; notes; printed matter; and press releases by or about the individuals.

  • Series VI. Legal Cases
    1976-1983
    2.5 linear feet (6 boxes)

    The Legal Cases series contains materials related to public hearings and legal cases, including City Council Health Committee hearings, New York State Assembly Sub-committee on Urban Health Care hearings, Title VI Civil Rights cases affiliated with the NAACP (e.g., Bryan v. Koch), and Council of Municipal Hospital Community Boards et al. vs. New York City Health and Hospital Corporation. Formats include transcripts of public and legal hearings; press releases and flyers related to hearings; supporting documents and background information for testimony at public hearings and for lawsuits; handwritten notes; news clippings and newspapers; and legal documents.

  • Series VII. Research Files
    1967-1987
    5.01 linear feet (12 boxes, 1 oversize folder)

    The Research Files series contains materials related to the 1981 Harlem Health Services Research and Development Corporation's collaboration with Coalition to Save Sydenham on Ambulatory Care and Pharmacy Questionnaires, also referred to as the Ambulatory Care Study or Primary Ambulatory Care Program. The study, funded by a grant from the Office of Health Systems Management, surveyed existing services involving physicians and pharmacies in West Harlem and led to the recommendation of the reopening of Sydenham Hospital as the Sydenham Community Hospital. The study files comprise questionniares and supporting materials, including inventories of services and hours of operation, facility schedules, correspondence, reports, memos, printed matter, pamphlets, news clippings, notes, profile forms, and data.

    The series also includes a politics section and a section of news clippings. The Politics files contain New York Alliance newspapers; news clippings, flyers, correspondence related to the mayoral election of 1981; and a pamphlet on the Greensboro massacre. The News Clippings are largely about Sydenham or related issues (there are also news clippings mixed into other folders throughout the series).

    Additionally, there are subject files related to public health, health care, and corresponding policies and studies; hospitals and health facilities; housing; environmental factors on health; the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation; "Afrocentric" health; "new age"/holistic health; and non-western and traditional medicine. The subject files are largely related to New York City but some content focuses on other locations or national information.

  • Series VIII. Dissertation Manuscript Chapters
    1985 November 25 - 1986 March 4
    0.42 linear feet (1 box)

    This series includes five dot matrix print outs of draft chapters I-VII of Ebun Adelona's dissertation The Social Relations of Health from the Columbia University Teachers' College Anthropology program. The print outs are arranged by chapter number. Chapter VII, titled "The Battle for Sydenham," describes the fight against Sydenham's closure. Adelona completed the dissertation in 1998.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Donated by Ebun Adelona in 1990.

Processing information

Initially processed by Janice Quinter. Processing completed by Sarah Barlow-Ochshorn in 2026.

Separated material

See the Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division for the Sydenham Hospital Protest audio collection, Sc MIRS Sydenham 1990-16.

See the Photographs and Prints Division for the Sydenham Hospital Protest collection, Sc Photo Sydenham Hospital Protest Collection.

Using the collection

Location

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Second Floor