TheViewfromtheVue

thousand of its passengers were killed and several hundred were injured. The majority of these survivors were brought to The Vue by horse-drawn ambulances. The same equine-powered conveyances also brought in the victims of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire and the 1912 Equitable Life Assurance Building conflagration. The year 1918 marked the great influenza epidemic, and the lion’s share of the seriously ill New Yorkers received their inpatient care at The Vue. Since there was no effective treatment for the condition, mortality rates were astronomical: on one particular day that fall, sixty-two Bellevue inmates lost their battle with the flu bug. Included among the grim statistics were several members of the hospital’s nursing and physician staffs. In the spring of 1947, New York City had a serious smallpox scare. The disease was brought in by a traveler from Mexico who, on his way to Maine, got as far as Gotham before collapsing. Guess where he went for help at that point. Before the problem was declared solved, two months had passed, twelve people had come down with smallpox (two of whom died), six million citizens had been vacc......