The writer Henry James described the hospital in his 1907 book The American Scene as one of the few fine examples of architecture in Manhattan, describing it as an "exemplary Hospital" and expressing his admiration for the red-bricked building's ability to "invest itself with stillness.
It was as if the clamorous city ... [was] forever at rest and no one was stepping lively for miles and miles. [...]
I was won over, on the spot."

In addition, the Federal Writer's Project's Guide to New York City, published in 1940, extolled the virtues of the Hospital's building, and the other original building of the Medical Center, as "among the pioneering structures of the late 1920s when traditional styles were being abandoned in favor of a utilitarian approach," with large flat windows to provide the maximum amount of natural light, but the AIA Guide to New York City says that they are "bulky and banal" and calls the streetscape "a bore".
The writer Henry James described the hospital in his 1907 book The American Scene as one of the few fine examples of architecture in Manhattan, describing it as an "exemplary Hospital" and expressing his admiration for the red-bricked building's ability to "invest itself with stillness. It was as if the clamorous city ... [was] forever at rest and no one was stepping lively for miles and miles. [...] I was won over, on the spot."
In addition, the Federal Writer's Project's Guide to New York City, published in 1940, extolled the virtues of the Hospital's building, and the other original building of the Medical Center, as "among the pioneering structures of the late 1920s when traditional styles were being abandoned in favor of a utilitarian approach," with large flat windows to provide the maximum amount of natural light, but the AIA Guide to New York City says that they are "bulky and banal" and calls the streetscape "a bore".
Presbyterian Hospital (New York City)