New Hospital Wing, from Rochester Review 18(5):22 (June-July 1940)

Plot Plan from Hospital Planning, by Charles Butler and Addison Erdman (1946) Page 118	New Wing in 1941 after completion

The first major addition to the original building was a new wing for the hospital, which opened in May 1941 to provide additional private rooms for patients.  This new wing was originally called R Wing, but was renamed Q Wing when the new Psychiatric Wing was opened in 1949 as R Wing.  The one-story connecting corridor between B Wing and the new wing was called M Wing in some references.

Floor plans of the new wing are included in the 1946 floor plans of the original building.. 

References
1940 "Plan to Add Wing Bared by Hospital," Democrat and Chronicle, January 17, 1940, Page 17. | Part 2 |

1940 "University Will Expend $400,000 To Increase Hospital Facilities," Rochester Review 18(5):22 (June-July 1940)

1940 "Hospital to Build $390,000 Addition," Democrat and Chronicle, September 2, 1940, Page 20.

1940 "Unions Move to End Strike" Democrat and Chronicle, October 26, 1940, Page 18.

1940 "Delay Denied on New Wing," Democrat and Chronicle, December 27, 1940, Page 13.

1941 Annual Report of the President and Treasurer of the University of Rochester 1940-1941
Page 86-87:  New Hospital Wing. In the report of a recent survey in Rochester by Dr. W. G. Smillie, it was recommended that more low cost hospital beds be provided. The new wing of Strong Memorial Hospital is designed to meet the need of patients of moderate means who desire privacy, and eighty per cent of the private rooms are of the minimal cost type. The upper four floors will eventually be occupied by patients. The ground and first floors provide much needed extension of dining room and kitchen facilities, locker and rest rooms for employees and diagnostic and treatment facilities for physicians. The top floor of Wing R was occupied by patients on May 1, 1941, and the fourth floor on July 1, 1941. The third floor provides additional housing accommodations for nurses until it is needed for patients. The second floor of the new wing is not being completed for hospital use at this time. The private offices, which formerly were adjacent to the Out-Patient Department on the ground floor, have been moved to the south end of the first floor of Wing R. This unit comprises a waiting room, doctors' conference room, office for nurse and secretary, laboratory, six private offices and examining rooms. The administration offices now occupy a section of the two-story building which connects Wing R and Wing B.
The construction of this wing under the competent direction of Kaelber and Waasdorp, Architects, and Hopeman Brothers, Contractors, was interrupted for five weeks in the fall of 1940 by a labor union jurisdictional dispute. Although the demand for additional beds was great throughout the period of construction, the restriction of a Monday-to-Friday five-day week was observed. Hospital service in this building will be provided, as in all hospitals, twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week.

1946 Hospital Planning, by Charles Butler and Addison Erdman
Pages 118-128:  Strong Memorial Hospital and Rochester Municipal Hospital, including floor plans for Q Wing.

1950 The First Quarter Century 1925-1950  
Page 26:    The opening of Wing Q in May, 1941, provided additional single rooms, most of which are small but adequate for patients who desire privacy at minimal cost.

1975 To each his farthest star:  The University of Rochester Medical Center -1925-1975, edited by Edward C. Atwater and John Romano.
Pages  275-276:  In July of 1942 the five-year degree course had been accelerated for the duration to enable students to complete their work in a little over four years.
This speedup, plus the large number of cadet nurses, led to a peak enrollment of 325 students in the spring of 1945. To accommodate everyone an addition, financed by federal funds, was added to Helen Wood Hall to house 33 students, and two floors in the Q Wing were converted to dormitories.
Page 324:  Not only has the type of disease problem changed in hospitalized patients over the past thirty years, but so has the distribution of patients by social and economic background. Formerly, ward or division patients were isolated in the Municipal Hospital, which was physically part of Strong Memorial Hospital with its adjacent semiprivate two and four bedrooms and the strictly private Q Wing with single rooms located further down the corridor to the west.

1977 History of the University of Rochester, 1850-1962, by Arthur J. May.  Expanded edition with notes
Chapter 31, Women, Music, Medicine in Wartime
In June, 1940, construction of a Q wing at the hospital was started on the west end of the original structure; six stories high, it was designed to care for 120 patients in private and semi-private rooms.

© 2021 Morris A. Pierce