NYU Buys Entire Jehovah's Complex on Brooklyn Heights Waterfront to Build Huge 'Medical Superdrome'

 Who would have thought the Jehovah's Witnesses would sell their entire portfolio of factory and residential buildings on the Brooklyn Heights waterfront to just one buyer: NYU, which yesterday plunked down $2.9 billion for the 16 buildings, which they plan to remake into a major medical center, teaching hospital and campus to be called the "NYU Medical Superdrome."

"With days-long waits in all of Brooklyn's emergency rooms, Brooklyn has a well-documented need for a new hospital --  actually two or three. And with its explosive growth over the last three years, we can think of no better place to locate our new NYU Medical Superdrome," said NYU president Jon Sackson.

Helipad on building 23A.

The new Medical Superdrome site will incorporate most of the buildings along Columbia Heights and Furman St, and many others.

Highways in the surrounding area, including the BQE, already overburdened, would need to be rebuilt, DOT said. The plan incorporates a helipad for air ambulance use. NYU has planned a sleek "patient monorail " using the Jehovah's famous underground tunnel network, said to run under most of Brooklyn Heights.

When asked why NYU did not make a bid to build their medical center at Long Island College Hospital (LICH) during the recent bidding war there, a spokesperson said, "Brooklyn needs a much, much bigger hospital. Do you see all the people moving in here? Sure, Brooklyn needs LICH. But they also need a world-class Medical Superdrome."

BQE exit to underground parking.

Mayor Bill de Blasio was said to have encouraged the arrangement, which would include a strategic partnership between the NYU Medical Superdrome, Interfaith Medical Center in Bed-Stuy and LICH in Cobble Hill. The three institutions would form the new "Brooklyn Medical Triangle."

Sackson said that the Medical Superdrome is expected to generate close to 9,000 direct employs and roughly 45,000 indirect jobs.

Governor Cuomo was quick to jump onto the Medical Superdrome bandwagon.

"I've said all along that Brooklyn needs more hospital beds," he declared. "After all, it's the fastest-growing county in the state and the most dynamic. Brooklynites don't go to Manhattan anymore, Manhattan comes to Brooklyn."

He then launched into a moving speech about his medical vision for Brooklyn, and how he saw the need for a major medical complex there before anyone else did.

"The borough’s future was hanging in the balance, literally. And the cynics and the naysayers said that it was too far gone," he said, wiping a tear from his eye. "Children were dying."

"We stopped talking and we started doing. There you have it, my friends --  we have reversed decades of decline, saved lives, and made dramatic and undeniable progress. It was my idea. I did it. I did."

NYU plans to work with the community on designs starting next month at a meeting at the Brooklyn Heights branch library on Cadman Plaza West.

Sackson added, as an aside, that one of the things he liked about Brooklyn was its small scale, as exemplified by the two-story Heights library. 

[This is an April Fools post! This is an April Fools Post! This is an April Fools post!]

Photos courtesy of random medical centers

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