Bellevue – Looney Bin or 4 Star Hotel

New York City is considering a plan that would turn Bellevue hospital, the famous mental institution, into a hotel. Just think of the great marketing campaign they could run using the famous “Crazy Eddie” (is he still alive?) of New York radio commercial fame. “Come on down our prices are insane!”

Guests at Bellevue will soon be given bathrobes instead of straitjackets, if the city can convince a developer to turn its most famous nut house into a luxe hotel.

City officials yesterday said they’re confident the hospital’s old psychiatric ward, which until the mid-1980s provided something short of four-star accommodations to countless kooks and criminals, would help fill a void in Manhattan’s East Side medical corridor.

Originally, officials considered turning the 1931 Italian Renaissance-style building on First Avenue between 29th and 30th streets into condos, but oddly, the layout of a mental institution is better suited to a hotel, Melissa Konur, vice president of the city’s Economic Development Commission, told The Post. “There are long corridors, and the rooms aren’t very big,” she said.