[1] The institution was built to treat cholera patients who were denied admittance to City Hospital in Manhattan during an onset of the disease in the summer of 1854.
[3] A few weeks afterward a second hospital for cholera patients was opened at a schoolhouse on Mott Street in Manhattan.
[4] Of the 696 patients admitted at both sites, there was a high mortality rate, numbering approximately one half of the persons treated.
They believed that the disease was transmitted when people breathed the air which cholera patients exhaled.
It was selected by the New York City Board of Health to provide the care the doctors desired for their patients.
People disliked the confining atmosphere, the uncleanliness, and the densely settled surroundings in close proximity to the building at the 105 Franklin address.
[8] It was falsely reported that Cholera Hospital received patients with smallpox, typhus, and other contagious diseases.
There were inaccurate stories of disturbing the peace of the neighborhood caused by the rapping of hammers of workers constructing coffins.