Public Employee Press

How we won the battle of North Central Bronx

I enjoyed your article about Ben Stewart in the Nov. 2007 PEP as I found him to be an excellent co-worker. However, there is a mistake in the article. North Central Bronx was never called Fordham Hospital. NCB took the place of Fordham and Morrisania hospitals, which were closed in the mid-1970s.

Management had ideas of selling NCB to the private Montefiore Hospital, and NCB was opened at the time only because Local 420 went on strike to force the city into opening it as a city hospital. Since its opening day we have had to live with the rumors that the hospital is closing or Montefiore is taking over. Ben, who came from Fordham was part of that struggle. I came from Morrisania to NCB before it was opened and helped set up the place.

Thank you for indulging the memories of an old man.

Jose Padilla
Local 420


Editor’s note: The record shows that in 1976, during the city’s fiscal crisis, the union fought together with the community and the Health and Hospitals Corp. to open the $100 million facility against the wishes of the state Health Dept. and the Emergency Financial Control Board “We will not let them sell off this beautiful modern hospital to pay off a deficit,” said Lillian Roberts, then DC 37 associate director, as over 1,000 members demonstrated in the rain Oct. 1, 1976, to open the hospital.