The Block House

9 Barry Road | also 9 Governors Island, 140 Carder Road | Governors Island | built 1900

Open on the map5 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1839

    The Army builds the Post Hospital, later nicknamed the Block House for its austere look

    Building 9 went up in 1839 as the post hospital for the Fort Columbus garrison, which had been established on Governors Island in 1821. It is a two-story brick Greek Revival building. Its plan and detailing are severe, much like some arsenal buildings elsewhere on the island from the same period, and that look gave it the popular name Block House.

    “Built in 1839 in the Greek Revival style ... Building 9 exhibits an austerity in plan and detailing, which prompted its popular name, the Block House.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1843

    A colonel complains that the hospital's walled flat roof works like a tub

    Colonel Truman Cross wrote to the Quartermaster General's office in 1843 to fault the hospital's flat roof, which was ringed by a three-and-a-half-foot brick wall. He likened it to a tub that collects water rather than a roof that sheds it. By 1863 at the latest, the roof had been replaced with a hipped one, to stop leaks and settling, though the change hurt the building's Greek Revival look.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1874

    Two patient wards are added behind the hospital because of poor ventilation

    The Post Hospital served the garrison until 1878. In 1874, because the original building was poorly ventilated, two large wings for patient wards were added at the rear, reaching almost to the seawall. Auxiliary structures enclosed the rear courtyard of this complex until some time in the twentieth century.

    “In 1874, due to poor ventilation in the original building, two large wings to serve as patient wards were built onto the rear…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1878

    The Military Division of the Atlantic moves to the island and finds the hospital unsuited

    Before 1878 the interior of the old hospital building was used for courts-martial, examinations of recruits, lectures and balls. That year the Military Division of the Atlantic was relocated to Governors Island, and the Army judged the building unsuited as a hospital. For several decades afterward Building 9 served as command headquarters for a series of Army commands.

    “…by 1878 when the Military Division of the Atlantic was transferred to the island, it deemed the building "unsuited for the purpose of a Hospital.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 1947

    By 1947 the old headquarters building has been converted to four sets of officers' quarters

    By 1947 the former hospital and headquarters had been divided into four sets of officers' quarters, and it has stayed in residential use since. The Landmarks Preservation Commission notes that survey documentation from the 1930s suggests the conversion may have happened as part of the Works Progress Administration work on the island.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 81 buildings with stories in Governors Island