St. John's Episcopal Hospital renames its street

This is the way. The St. John’s Episcopal Hospital Way.

St. John’s Episcopal Hospital serving the Rockaway Peninsula and southwest Nassau County  celebrated a milestone on a hot and humid Wednesday morning on July 26 outside the main hospital building at the intersection of Brookhaven Avenue and Beach 20th Street as the street was re-named St. John’s Episcopal Hospital Way.

“This sign will be standing on this corner and you are all a part of that,” said Renee Hastick-Motes, vice president of external  affairs.

“For almost 120 years, the religious communities have provided care for the people of Far Rockaway from this location,” said Bishop Lawrence Provenzano, Chair of the Board of Trustees. “Naming this street says everything about our commitment and our ongoing work for the care of people in Far Rockaway in this place.”

Although the main celebration was the renaming of the street, Chief Executive Officer Gerald Walsh was celebrating a personal celebration, his eighth anniversary in his role.

“We have certainly come a long way in eight years,” he said, which was also met with spectators shouting, “We certainly have!”

Walsh said that during his tenure, the hospital has shifted the hospital’s organizational culture, rebuilt and forged new relationships with the community and elected officials. But he also emphasized the rebuilt relationships with patients and team members that can contribute to the street being renamed after the hospital.

A  hospital that provides general adult medical services, pediatrics, obstetrics and psychiatric services will also soon be home to a cancer program, which has not been offered on the site since 2012, Walsh said.

“It is what the community needs,” he said. “It is what they wanted, so we did listen to the community.”

Walsh noted several elected officials, however, hospital officials highlighted the assistance of Councilwoman Selvena N. Brooks-Powers a driving force in the renaming of the street. Brooks-Powers represents District 31, which includes several Rockaway communities including Far Rockaway.

“For over a century, St. John’s has provided healthcare on the peninsula to our residents and I am proud to honor the doctors, nurses and hospital staff that care for this community,” the Queens native said. “St. John’s has worked hard to rise to the challenge of being the sole hospital on the Rockaway Peninsula.”

Trees, numbers, presidents, or people who have died are the most popular names for streets and Powers said that St. John’s Episcopal Hospital has earned that status for its role in its surrounding communities and its role during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“As Renee (Hastick-Motes) said, we don’t name streets after institutions, we name them after individuals after they have passed,” Powers said. “But with the role St. John’s played in the midst of the pandemic, it was no question this institution deserved to have a street named after it.”