Founded in 1736, Bellevue is America’s oldest public hospital. Starting as an alms house with 6 beds for the city’s poor, the dangers to the public from outbreaks of diphtheria, cholera, & yellow fever saw the need for a place of quarantine. At a time when Manhattan didn’t yet extend beyond Wall Street, the empty mansion of the Quaker-merchant Murray Family a few miles to the north was selected for New York’s first hospital.