During the later part of the 19th Century, the South Philadelphia neighborhood that is now called Pennsport was quickly growing, due to influx of impoverished immigrants.

In 1882 there was the great migration from Russia of Jewish migrants to Philadelphia that settled in the Pennsport neighborhood during this time period and many suffered from a severe lack of medical services.

Ultimately, at the turn of the Twentieth Century, the Beth Israel Hospital Association was established in order to solve the problem.

The Mount Sinai Hospital Association considered building the facility outside of the city however they knew that it had to be built near where patients lived.

By 1904, the law was amended after lobbying the city government and the association procured an old lumber yard on the 1400 block of South 5th Street, central to the Pennsport neighborhood, that was the most in need.