Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Dr. Patricia Yang, and Department of Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards tour a private cell in Bellevue Hospital’s new jail ward. Photo by Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office 
By Jacob Kaye
The city on Wednesday will welcome patients to a long-delayed jail ward at Bellevue Hospital, finally putting to use a 104-bed unit that has sat unused since early 2025.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday said the city would finally open the outposted therapeutic housing unit at Bellevue Hospital – where detainees with serious physical illnesses will be treated – three years after it originally was supposed to begin treating detainees. Though construction of the first-of-its-kind facility was completed 15 months ago, it remained vacant as Mayor Eric Adams’ administration claimed it was unable to figure out how to staff it.
Concerns over staffing also plagued the Mamdani administration – as recently as two weeks ago, Department of Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards told the City Council that the DOC “face[s] challenges on staffing” regarding the opening of the Bellevue jail ward.
But the puzzle appeared to be resolved this week, as Mamdani said the unit, which will be staffed by between 130 and 140 officers, will accept its first approximately 100 patients on Wednesday.
The unit’s opening marks a step toward the closure of Rikers Island, an effort that stalled under Adams but that Mamdani has vowed to restart.
“Today, we are charting a different course, one that diverts from the path of neglect and begins the process of closing Rikers Island once and for all,” Mamdani said from Bellevue on Tuesday. “This is only the beginning of our efforts.”
Bellevue is the first of three hospitals expected to one day be outfitted with an outposted therapeutic housing unit, where detainees with both serious physical illnesses like cancer, as well as those with severe mental illnesses, will be treated.
The units are part of the city’s broader plan to close Rikers Island, which is running years behind schedule. While city law currently requires the jail complex to be shuttered by August 2027, Mamdani said on Tuesday the deadline was “practically impossible” as a result of the “flouting of not just recommendations but requirements” of the closure plan by the Adams administration.
Before the city can close Rikers, it will need to complete the four borough-based jails to replace its current jail complex. The first of the jails isn’t expected to open until 2029, and the final jail won’t be completed until 2032.
In the meantime, the city will also need to figure out how to lower its incarcerated population – while there are currently around 6,770 people behind bars on Rikers, the borough-based facilities will only be able to hold 4,400 detainees at any given time.
The city hopes that the outposted therapeutic housing units will, to some extent, lighten the population load.
More importantly, supporters of the closure plan say the units will provide more humane care to detainees suffering from severe illnesses.
Currently, those with serious illnesses are bused back and forth from Rikers for treatment, but many don’t make it to the hospital.
During a two-month period toward the end of 2024, only around 38 percent of people were seen as scheduled at off-island specialty clinics, according to a 2025 report from the Independent Rikers Commission, which crafted the city’s plan to shutter Rikers.
Dr. Patricia Yang, the senior vice president of Correctional Health Services, said on Tuesday that many of the missed appointments came after detainees refused to be taken to the hospital, citing the difficulty of the journey.
“Many of our most medically involved patients were actually declining what, in some cases, was potentially life-saving treatment, solely because that round trip journey between Rikers and Bellevue was just so arduous that it could not be endured,” Yang said.
The new unit may also serve as a welcome reprieve from the decrepit conditions on Rikers Island for officers. According to the mayor, over 400 officers applied to work in the unit.
“Too often, when we’re thinking about the conditions on Rikers Island, many overlook the fact that corrections officers are going every day to work in those same conditions,” Mamdani said. “[The Bellevue unit] bring[s] a level of humanity back to the entire equation.”
The mayor on Tuesday said that the city would begin to move forward with building outposted therapeutic units at Woodhull and North Central Bronx Hospitals which were supposed to open in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
Zachary Katznelson, the executive director of the Independent Rikers Commission, celebrated the mayor’s commitment to moving forward with the units, which the commission urged the city to create in its blueprint to shut Rikers.
“Today’s action is what progress looks like: moving people out of unsafe, outdated facilities and into settings better equipped to deliver appropriate care and security,” Katznelson said in a statement. “ It signals a shift from identifying problems at Rikers to actively solving them. ”
“This milestone underscores a broader point: when the city follows a clear, actionable plan grounded in safety, care, and operational reality, progress follows,” he added. “Sustaining that approach will be essential to fully closing Rikers Island.”
A hallway in the North Infirmary Command, the facility where detainees with serious physical illnesses have long been held on Rikers Island. File photo via BOC
In announcing the opening of the Bellevue jail ward on Tuesday, Mamdani said the administration would also move forward with a separate but related element of the plan to close Rikers that similarly saw delays under the Adams administration.
The mayor said that the DOC would soon decommission the North Infirmary Command, the jail facility on Rikers where the most seriously ill detainees are held, and turn the building over to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.
The transfer would mark the first time the DOC has sent a vacant jail facility or parcel of land on Rikers Island to DCAS since the end of the de Blasio administration. The transfers, which came to a complete halt under Adams, are part of the city’s Renewable Rikers Act, which requires the city to turn the island into a renewable energy hub once the jail complex is closed.
According to the law, the transfers are supposed to occur every six months until the jails are shuttered.
Adams, who generally opposed the plan to close Rikers, missed all eight opportunities to make transfers during his four years in office.
While the former mayor faced criticism for failing to make any transfers, the law gives the administration significant discretion. It only requires the city to twice a year turn over facilities deemed “not in active use” for housing incarcerated people or providing direct services. If officials determine a facility is still in use, they are not required to transfer it.
Mamdani said the agency would transfer NIC to DCAS in July.
