Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll find out about an animal hospital’s expansion and its new “human-grade technology.” We’ll also get details on a hearing about the church on the Upper West Side that wants to tear down its landmark building.
The patient was being prepped for an operation to relieve elbow discomfort. The anesthesiologist had sedated her and inserted a breathing tube. Dr. Chanel Berns, who specializes in minimally invasive surgery, was standing by. A monitor showed the patient’s heart rate was 74 beats per minute, and her blood pressure was 95 over 58. Now the team hovering over the patient was shaving her. “Our patients just have more hair,” Dr. Berns said. The patient, Mila, was a 5-year-old German shepherd mix. She was about to be wheeled into one of five new operating rooms at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center, which has just completed a $125 million expansion. Helen Irving, the president and chief executive, said that the four-year project more than doubled the number of animals it can treat at any one time. The new facilities, with what the hospital calls “human-grade technology,” are to be dedicated today. The hospital operated around the clock, the same as always, while construction crews built a nine-story tower beside and above its 1960s building. The hospital, on East 62nd Street, says it now has 1.1 million potential patients in New York City — pets living with the 8.48 million humans in the five boroughs. The hospital also said that the jump in animals in households during the pandemic meant that its services as a Level 1 trauma center and a hub for specialized animal care were needed more than ever. The expansion includes a new, larger intensive-care unit with separate spaces for dogs and cats. The veterinarians do not want barking to upset the cats or meowing to upset the dogs. There are also separate cages for animals that the vets suspect have infectious ailments, to keep them from spreading diseases like avian flu. The emergency room was also enlarged, Irving said as Dr. Carly Fox, a veterinarian there, examined a ferret that had been brought in with diarrhea. Soon the ferret was on the way to have an ultrasound, to rule out a blockage in her intestinal tract. Some 45 patients are sent to the emergency room on a typical day. On a busy day, the E.R. handles about 70 cases. There are also new facilities for specialties — including cardiology, neurology, ophthalmology and radiology — and Irving said the hospital’s oncology unit was playing a larger role in patient care than it once did. Some 40 percent of larger breeds of dogs develop cancer, she said. The decision-making process — to determine whether an animal with cancer should undergo surgery, radiation or chemotherapy — is “exactly the same as what happens in the human world,” Irving said, adding, “By having all three disciplines together, it means the animal can get the appropriate care quickly without being bounced around through different departments.” Each case is presented to a panel called a tumor board. “Everyone discusses the case,” she said, “and then the team will determine the best treatment.” Many of the animals come in for physical therapy. In one rehabilitation room, Maggie, a 15-year-old black-and-white Border collie, was paddling in a water tank. Maggie, who has arthritis, has been getting steroid joint injections. Around the corner, Kelly Zupanek, a rehabilitation specialist, was working with Remy, an 11-year-old Labrador retriever that has osteoarthritis. The session ended with Zupanek giving Remy a treat.
“I treated people for 20 years at H.S.S.,” she said, referring to the Hospital for Special Surgery a few blocks away. “We didn’t give treats, just lots of positive reinforcement.” Back in the operating room, Berns’s eyes were fixed on a video monitor. The image on the screen was from the tiny camera in the surgical tool she had inserted in Mila’s leg through an incision the size of a grain of rice. The abnormal bone looked like ice cream, Berns said as she began scraping it away with a tool with a U-shaped bowl. On the monitor, the tool, a curet, looked like the size of an ice cream scoop. When Berns pulled it out, the concave tip was almost too small to see. The good news, Berns said, was that Mila did not appear to have arthritis. “I think she’s going to have a good outcome,” Berns said. Remy’s physical therapy apparently went well, too. Remy walked out of the hospital, only to sidle up a no-parking sign and do what dogs do when they sidle up to no-parking signs in New York City. WEATHER Tuesday is expected to have more clouds than Monday, with a high of 35. In the evening lows are expected to be around 33 degrees, with wind gusts as high as 23 miles per hour. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Dec. 25 (Christmas) The latest Metro news
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Landmarks panel to hear testimony on an application to demolish a church
On the agenda at the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s “public meeting/hearing” today are eight items. The last is an application to tear down West Park Presbyterian Church on the Upper West Side — a “hardship application” filed by the church, which wants to sell its landmark building to a real estate developer in a deal worth more than $30 million. For that to happen, the commission must approve demolition. The commission has done that in hardship cases only a handful of times in its 60-year history. The church says that it meets the commission’s criteria for hardship cases because it cannot afford to keep up the building, which was built in the 1880s. Last month the local community board voted against granting the application, an action that was only advisory. Earlier the church had announced that it would set up a “social justice fund” with money from the real estate transaction, channeling grants to other Presbyterian churches in the city. Today the commission will hear from representatives of the church. Others have signed up to speak, including representatives of the Center at West Park, an arts group that had leased space in the church building for years. The church evicted the center during the summer after the center lost a legal challenge involving its lease. Roger Leaf, the chairman of a church panel set up to sell the building, noted that the center was not a tenant in the building anymore. “Their only role in this has been to stir up opposition,” he said. Whether the building “meets the center’s needs is not the test. The test is whether it meets the charitable purposes of the church.” METROPOLITAN DIARY 13 Records
Dear Diary: It was the mid-1990s, and we were living in Washington Heights with our 4-year-old daughter. An older woman, a widow, who lived on our floor adored our daughter and showered her with compliments every time we bumped into her. After a time, we learned that she and her husband had survived the Holocaust. They had never had children. One day when our door was ajar, our neighbor peeked in and noticed some vinyl records that we liked to listen to with our daughter. Later, the woman invited me over to show me a box filled with classical records. They were in horrible condition: broken, scratched and caked with who-knows-what. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I thanked her and said we couldn’t wait to listen to them. I figured I’d get rid of them some time when she wouldn’t notice. As I was leaving, she said that her husband had loved classical music. They had always had Friday night dinner together when they were dating. And each time, instead of bringing her flowers, he had brought her a record. They had 13 dinners before getting married. There were 13 records in the box, and she said she wanted my daughter to enjoy them all. I still have those records. — Aryeh Friedman Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Lauren Hard, Stefano Montali and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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