Uninsured residents of the Upper West Side will soon have a lot more options.
The William F. Ryan Community Health Center has been a neighborhood resource for decades, and is planning to increase its patient capacity by 50 percent next May, when it expands its services to a new location at Amsterdam Avenue and West 100th Street in the now-opening Columbus Square development.
According to Will Murphy, senior director for program services at the Center, the new space will house the women’s, pediatric, and mental health facilities, along with a federal program called Women, Infants, and Children, which provides food stamps and nutrition education for low-income families. With a 50 percent increase in space, Murphy said they will be able to add to the number of specialty services offered at the original 97th Street location and serve 10,000 more people, after treating 20,000 patients last year.
Murphy couldn’t specify the additional specialty services planned because negotiations with potential staff and partners are ongoing, but said, “It’s part of our overall mission to provide all services under one roof.”
The existing clinic on West 97th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus—which opened in 1988 as an extension of the original center established in 1967—offers general and specialized services, including pediatrics, mental health, women’s health, neurology, vision, and dental. It was founded on the principle, espoused by former Rep. William F. Ryan (D-N.Y.), that “healthcare is a right, not a privilege.” In keeping with that philosophy, the Ryan Center serves primarily low-income individuals. Its three primary New York City locations accept Medicare, Medicaid, Child Health Plus, Family Health Plus, and over a dozen other insurance plans, and offer income-based sliding scales to uninsured patients.
The catalyst for purchasing the new site was the impending loss of a space on West 100th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus, which the Center had occupied since 1967. The New York City Department of Health is closing that building for renovations.
“We were already on the lookout for space for a number of years,” Murphy said. Despite the fact that 801 Columbus was relatively expensive, he said they didn’t have another choice. “We were kind of in a bind, we needed to find space for those services. A confluence of circumstances occurred whereby that space was available, the developer was looking for an organization that could fall under the rubric of community use, and we fit well into that requirement, so we negotiated a long-term lease,” Murphy said.
But concerns about finances linger. “That’s one of the reasons our projection for services is ambitious,” Murphy said. “We really need to see quite a number of people in order to be able to afford that space and continue to expand.”
The Center received federal stimulus money earlier this year, and is hoping to get additional federal funding in the future. In the short term, the expansion is funded by grants from several foundations, which Murphy said he was not authorized to name.
“The economic downturn really has led to an increase in patients registering with us at all of our sites,” Murphy added. “Unfortunately, a lot of those people have no insurance, so that hasn’t led to increased revenue for us necessarily. We’re hoping the federal government will see its way clear to make some more funding available for that reason, because whatever health care reform gets passed in Congress is not going to take effect immediately.”
High rates of uninsured individuals, he said, “will continue to be a fiscal drain on organizations like ours.”
The new clinic will be a part of Columbus Square, the large mixed-use development on Columbus Avenue from 97th Street to 100th Street, which has been opposed by some residents of the existing middle-income Park West Village units.
“This superblock development we’re moving into has been a little controversial,” Murphy said, but speaking of neighborhood residents, he added, “They have come to know us and trust us. But I think for a lot of the folks in the community, it was a really good thing that Ryan ended up being a tenant there.”
Maggi Peyton, president of the Park West Village Tenants’ Association, agreed, adding that her association has held meetings in the Ryan Center’s 97th Street space.
“I think they’re a first-class community medical facility, and they’ve been great neighbors,” Peyton said. “Change is coming and it’s hard, but I don’t think anyone in Park West Village has any problems with the Ryan Center, no matter where they go.” Peyton, who is a senior adviser to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, recalled that in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11thin terrorist attacks, Ryan Center officials “were the first to call our office offering help.”
Murphy said that the demand for the Center’s pediatric services has increased recently, partly as a result of its outreach at five public schools—Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School on West 102nd Street, Booker T. Washington Middle School on West 107th Street, and three schools downtown. “Those parents often tend to switch over to us if the child is being seen in the school by one of our staff,” he said.
Murphy added, “We have seen an increase in the number of families who are eligible for WIC services, and WIC and nutrition services are going to be co-located with pediatrics. That should facilitate the enrollment of more families in that very valuable service.”
In addition to its 97th Street location, the Ryan Center operates hubs in Midtown and on the Lower East Side, and several off-site outreach centers. The latest expansion “was a project that was sort of born out of necessity, but there was some serendipity added in there,” Murphy said. “We weren’t looking for a space quite as large as what we got, but it turns out it fits into our plans for growth in the future.”
Editor's note: An earlier version of the graphic incorrectly stated that the 160 West 100th Street annex would remain open and the 110 West 97th Street location would close. The 97th Street location will remain open and the 100th Street annex will close. Spectator regrets the error.
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