Goldwater Memorial Hospital opened in 1939 as the
Welfare Hospital for Chronic Disease on a 9.9 acre (4.0 hectare) tract just south of the
Queensboro Bridge. The hospital, which included a medical library, was named for
Dr. S.S. Goldwater, the New York City Hospitals Commissioner responsible for the hospital complex master plan in 1942. In August 1972, the movie
The Exorcist began
principal photography at Goldwater, filming a scene where
Jason Miller (as Father Karras) and
Titos Vandis (as his uncle) argue about the care Karras's aging mother is receiving. Goldwater, built on city-owned land, shut its doors on December 31, 2013, to provide for the new
Cornell Tech campus. The hospital's closure and patient relocation was first announced in 2010, and demolition began in January 2014 with the removal of asbestos. ==References==