East Flatbush, formerly known as Rugby, is a suburban residential district lying south of East New York Avenue between Kings Highway and Nostrand Avenue. It contains chiefly one- and two-family houses. Along the southern fringe are open lots and occasional truck gardens. East Flatbush was developed in the 1920's and its growth continued through the depression of the 1930's. It was populated largely by the overflow from neighboring localities.
The corner of Rutland Road and East Ninety-fifth Street, in the eastern part, is locally known as the "slave market," because Negro domestic workers gather here daily on the sidewalk and offer their services at hourly rates.
Kings County Hospital, Clarkson Avenue from New York to Albany Avenues, a municipal institution, established in 1831, is the third largest medical center in the United States. Its bed capacity--2,825--is the largest in the city. In 1938, 61,039 patients were cared for in the hospital, and an additional 401,821 received treatment in the clinics. The resident staff comprises 192 physicians and internee and more than 1,000 nurses. The visiting staff consists of more than 500 leading Brooklyn and Manhattan medical men, who serve without compensation.
Kings County Hospital is really a collection of buildings rather than a group, for there is little sense of a unified whole. The architecture of the buildings is marked by a melange of influences and a clash of styles: Colonial, Spanish, Georgian, Gothic, and Romanesque--none very definite--are all represented. The main building at East Thirty-eighth Street houses the Acute Hospital. This imposing thirteen-story brick structure, completed in 1931 and officially known as the A B C Unit, was built from plans by Leroy P. Ward and Associates at the cost of about six million dollars Carved in the stone plaques at each side of the entrance are |names of notable scientists.
Demands for accommodations at Kings County Hospital have increased so rapidly that plans for additional buildings were projected in 1939.
These include a chronic hospital, a pathological building, a mortuary, a psychiatric hospital, and a building for the out-patient department.
Brooklyn State Hospital, Clarkson Avenue between Albany land Utica Avenues, is under the jurisdiction of the State Department of Mental Hygiene. It takes nervous and mental cases from Kings County The institution has 2,725 beds with complete facilities for observation care, and treatment. The Brooklyn State Hospital was opened in 1895, taking over some of the functions handled by the Kings County Hospital. During the past twenty years all the old buildings have been replaced by fireproof modern structures. The hospital grounds cover twenty-eight acres, and around the nineteen-story central building, opened in 1935, are grouped a number of ward and service buildings. Additions now being constructed will increase the bed capacity to 3,250.
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