The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion

Plainfield's Forgotten Gem

by Nancy A. Piwowar

Hidden behind a stockade fence, set far off Randolph Road, on the Muhlenberg property is a red brick building with a large arched window and a scrolled keystone. The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion dates to 1903, and is Plainfield's forgotten gem.

A notice in the local newspaper, Plainfield Courier-News, in 1900, related the possibility of a new hospital building, and the response by the local residents was immediate.  Public subscriptions were received.  Then the decision was made by the Muhlenberg Board of Governors, to build a "new" Muhlenberg Hospital at a new site, and many distinguished men offered land.  James E. Martine offered a lot on Thorton Avenue.  Former Mayor of North Plainfield, John F. Wilson, offered a lot in North Plainfield, but this could not be accepted because it was in a different county.  Finally the Muhlenberg Board of Governors took an option on farm land at the edge of the City on Park Avenue and Randolph Road.

Within four months of the discussions of a "new" Muhlenberg in the local newspaper, it was reported that J. Howard Wright in April, 1901, gave the largest and most generous donation of $10,000 for an operating pavilion for the "new" Muhlenberg in memory of his two grandsons.  Howard Wright Corlies died at the age of 23 from pneumonia in 1899.  Parker Wright Mason died at the age of 19 from typhoid fever in 1900.  J. Howard Wright was a wealthy Standard Oil businessman from New York City, and his two daughters and families resided in Plainfield, for many years. 

The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion also contained a sterilizing room, an etherizing room, a room for the X-ray instrument and a recovery room, which were all considered essential for a modern hospital. 

The 1903 Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion retains many of its original exterior elements including inscription, large arched, scrolled keystone, and northern window. The only evident change is the removal of the roof line skylight.  The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion was designed by Tracy and Swartwout, a New York architectural firm, and Evarts Tracy, one of the architects, grew up in Plainfield on West Eighth Street in the Van Wyck Brooks Historic District, and he later resided with his wife on Hillside Avenue, in the Hillside Avenue Historic District within sight of the "new" Muhlenberg and the Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion.

The 1903 Tracy and Swartwout Muhlenberg complex of buildings were not built squarely to face either Park Avenue or Randolph Road, but were "built squarely with the points of the compass."  The purpose of this was "to have the operating room face North, so that it would have the full benefit of the North light." [Plainfield Courier-News, July 19, 1902, page one article.]

Plainfield's forgotten gem has survived over one hundred and seven years, and is passed by daily on the way to the satellite emergency department without nearly a second glance because it is behind a stockade fence.  The wall inscription is obscured by the fence, and according to newspaper articles, behind the cornerstone of operating pavilion is a copper box that contains various items including: local and New York newspapers, Muhlenberg Hospital annual reports,  photographs of J. Howard Wright's grandsons, photographs of doctors, nurses, employees, and of the old hospital buildings, names of the contractors, to name a few items. 

The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion serves as a grand monument to Mr. Wright's Plainfield family, and the Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion is one of the only known surviving separate, stand alone operating room buildings extant in New Jersey and most likely in the United States.  It is important to preserve The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion because it is a monument to the Wright family, Muhlenberg heritage and medical culture, and Muhlenberg's doctors, nurses and staff.

Virtually no media coverage of this change in financial law.

December 15, 2010

Position Paper on Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act

New legislation is dismantling century old trusts and endowments that were supposed to
continue in perpetuity. This is the raiding and plundering of historic endowments to
compensate for property mortgages, pet projects, failed investments and expanded
personal compensation packages, which are not for the benefit of the Public and
certainly not the donors' intent. Unfortunately, new legislation is dismantling century old
trusts and endowments that were supposed to continue in perpetuity.

In 2006, The Uniform Law Commission (ULC) released Bush era guidelines
deregulating a substantial portion of nonprofit funds. More than 40 States have adopted
versions of these guidelines with very little debate and even less publicity. On June 10,
2009, NJ Governor Jon Corzine signed into law the Uniform Prudent Management of
Institutional Funds Act. This law creates troubling changes in the way that charitable
trusts and endowments are managed and regulated.

The use of the term "prudent" in dealing with "small funds" has resulted in an expansion
of the affected funds from the ULC suggested amount of $25,000 to a high of $250,000
in New Jersey and in a number of other States. These funds become "old" after the
suggested 20 years in NJ, and at least one State has shortened the time to 10 years.
Language on retroactivity is strategically vague and neglects public notification and
transparency.

Liquidating the principal in countless smaller endowments that support charitable work
in good times and bad will do irreparable harm to the public good that will eventually
achieve infamy as a crime against the living as well as the dead.

Most significant is the transfer of oversight from the jurisdiction of the States' Courts to a
political appointee - the State Attorney General - making nonprofits more vulnerable to
pay-to-play and unregulated asset transfers. Ethical assumptions about prudence,
motives, and human nature have subsequently been changed with lessons learned by
the banking crisis, predatory lending practices, bonuses amidst bailouts and the failure
of the SEC to regulate the exploitation of foundations and nonprofts by Madoff.

The dismantling of New Jersey hospitals, specifically Muhlenberg Regional Medical
Center, Plainfield, NJ, was facilitated of and by a corporate, nonprofit parent company
with related for-profit holdings and overlapping interests. The transfer of over a century's
accumulation of assets: endowments, gifts, real estate, facilities, and equipment was
done under the approval of the NJ State Government, and the NJ Attorney General's
Office. The cy pres doctrine was essentially ignored.

Citizens have raised the endowment issue at State hearings, in letters to the editor, and
various other venues, but all of this has fallen on deaf ears. The citizens are paying in
tax dollars the same State government employees who are not protecting their interests.

Unless the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center private citizen's can muster enough
money to initiate a court action, all of the historic endowments will be lost forever, over a
century of charity and sacrifice will been squandered and lost to future generations. In
this case, the NJ UPMIFA of 2009 had not been passed, yet the raiding and plundering
of endowments happened anyway.

  Muhlenberg Assets Court Argument by Deborah Joyce Dowe