The current structure opened in 1957, assuming the operations of the former City Hospital, founded in 1832 on Roosevelt Island.

Elmhurst Hospital Center has frequently suffered from equipment shortages because of its small capacity relative to its catchment area, which includes nearly a million people in northwestern Queens.

[2] The parking garage to the west of the main hospital contains 600 spaces and was opened in 1993 at a cost of $13 million.

When completed, it was privately owned, unlike the garages at most public hospitals in New York City.

[5][6] Elmhurst Hospital, located in Northwest Queens, predominantly serves neighborhoods in northwest, west-central, and western Queens, mostly the area west of Interstate 678 and north of Atlantic Avenue, except for Middle Village, Rego Park, Forest Hills, and Kew Gardens.

[16] By the late 1970s, Elmhurst Hospital was experiencing shortages of nurses and intensive care beds.

[4] During the project, hospital employees had been given permission to park their cars in a city playground across Broadway, which had prompted protests and a lawsuit from neighborhood residents, although the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation had promised to repair any damage to the playground.

[22] By the 2000s, due to the high ethnic diversity of surrounding areas, Elmhurst Hospital implemented programs to cater to patients' different cultural practices.

[24] As a result, signs were ordered in several additional languages, and dozens of multilingual staff members were given extra training.

[27][28] When the pandemic spread to the New York City area in March 2020, available beds were quickly filled up and patients without COVID-19 were transferred to other facilities.

[35] It also received 40 BiPAP machines from Tesla, Inc.[36] Admissions decreased during the first week of April, but doctors said that they were sending home patients who would have been admitted if there were space for them.