Construction   1925-29
 

The new Medical Center took more than a decade to move from plans on paper to shovels
into the ground. Columbia University and Presbyterian Hospital reached a preliminary
affiliation agreement in 1911, but over the next 10 years Columbia considered other partners,
a world war broke out, the benefactor considered other potential sites, and negotiations
between Columbia and Presbyterian broke off several times. P&S dean William Darrach,
whose 1919 "Memorandum on the School of Medicine" formed the basis for the 1921 revised
agreement between Columbia and Presbyterian, deserves much of the credit for the survival
of the medical center concept. On January 31, 1925, the first steam shovels finally tore into the
frigid Washington Heights soil, and the first three years of construction began.
 

Stalc-of-lhc-Art  Construclion,   Igz^.

A sUMin sho\el strains against M.inli.ittan's bedrock Co cxca\atc a

f uiiKiitloii lor ihe Medical Ceiitet. June 26. 1925.