’Goldwater’ explores former Roosevelt Island landmark

When Goldwater Memorial Hospital closed at the end of 2013 to make way for the new Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City, architect-turned-photographer Charles Giraudet began a race against time. He set out to document the structure, which opened in 1939 for chronic care and research. He took more than 18,500 photographs of the hospital after patients moved out and before the last of it came down in 2015. 'When it was built, it was seen like when we went to the moon - it was a great achievement,' Giraudet said. 'We were going to take care of people with chronic diseases, we were going to cure people with polio.' Sixty-two of his images are on display until Nov. 22 in 'Goldwater: Autopsy of a Hospital,' in the Bibliowicz Family Gallery in Milstein Hall. The gallery is open weekdays, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Giraudet's fascination with the hospital 'started 25 years ago,' he said.