These Treasurer's Office files contain records from the years 1948-1976. The bulk of this collection falls between 1960-1974, when Ira A. Schur was Treasurer.
The types of records in this collection are varied and numerous and they reveal the activities and priorities of the Treasurer's Office over this time. They include: minutes of Board of Trustee meetings and of various committees; correspondence with administration, faculty, other institutions, businesses, governmental agencies, lawyers, and many others; printed reports concerning various aspects of the Hospital; loan requests; employee agreements; and various budgetary reports.
The documentation reveals a few recurring themes. A large percentage of the records concern personnel management. Among the employee related material are: employee agreements and contracts; retirement agreements; data on retirement funds; tax annuity reports; private practice agreements; and comparative studies of executive benefits, perquisites, and salaries. Two sets of folders in the collection relate directly to employee benefit issues. The first contains the files of the Ad Hoc Committee for Executive Benefits, which existed from 1962-1970 to determine appropriate benefits for executive level personnel. They are found in folders labeled "Executive Insurance and Benefits." The second folder group contains the records of the Compensation Committee, which was formed in 1972 (the records continue to 1973) and had similar objectives to that of the previously mentioned Ad Hoc Committee. This second series is found in folders labeled "Compensation Committee."
There are several other subjects that recur in these files. Many documents relate to funds and fundraising, including records concerning funds for the then new Annenberg Building and School of Medicine. There are many documents relating to the tax status of corporations, house staff, executives, and other employees. Also found here is correspondence regarding the incorporation of The Mount Sinai Medical Center and name changes for Mount Sinai School of Medicine. In addition, as might be expected, there are data on expenses and supply costs.
Throughout the collection is correspondence with many prominent Mount Sinai individuals including Gustave Levy, Chairman of the Boards of Trustees; Martin Steinberg, MD, Director of The Mount Sinai Hospital from 1948 to 1969; Hans Popper, MD, Ph.D., Chairman of the Department of Pathology and President/Dean of Mount Sinai; Jack Herman, Director of Development; and S. David Pomrinse, MD, Director of The Mount Sinai Hospital from 1969 to 1977.
The Treasurer's Office hired outside consulting firms to perform many studies. Included in the collection are a compensation study completed by the Martin E. Segal Company (1973) and a Mount Sinai Medical Center report on tax shelter annuity programs conducted by S. B. Ackerman Associates (1973).
Ira A. Schur conducted the majority of his Treasurer's responsibilities from his office at S. D. Leidesdorf and Co. where he worked from 1916 until his retirement in 1969. However, there are many documents that reveal that he also conducted business at Mount Sinai and occasionally from his homes in Manhattan and Scarsdale, New York.
The files contained in this collection are of value for many reasons, one being the level of the office and its importance to the institution. Another aspect that brings value to these records is their relative completeness and comprehensiveness. An examination of these records provides an understanding of the evolution and workings of the Treasurer's Office.
It is difficult to say what gaps the collection may have since the records were not donated directly from the Treasurer's office and contain files only as recent as 1976. However, it is surprising that there is only minimal mention of issues regarding property and no information on banking or evidence of bank accounts and bill payments, which are all major responsibilities of the office. On the whole, the collection lacks budgetary data. Although it does contain some budgetary reports and financial statements, the majority of the collection is composed of day to day personnel and individually-focused issues.

These files represent an almost complete official record of the Clinical Excellence Committee, the Task Forces, and their subcommittees. The minutes are complete, with only one exception. There are few interim reports or correspondence among the coordinators, the chairmen of the committees, and members. The final report is contained in Box 2, folder 1.

Some of the minutes have notes made by Dr. Thomas Chalmers, President and Dean of The Mount Sinai Medical Center and School of Medicine. The files probably came from that office, although, aside from these few notes, they are generic.

This collection of papers from Dr. Rowe’s office is different from previous Presidents’ collections, providing a higher level view of Mount Sinai. There are very few files relating to the various departments of the Medical School or the Hospital as is seen in earlier President’s files. There is also little here relating to the Hospital’s establishment of the Mount Sinai Health System, although the merger with New York University is covered. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that Dr. Rowe served as President of the Mount Sinai Medical Center only. Earlier Presidents had also been Dean of the School of Medicine and so had oversight over these departmental or institution specific issues.

There is a great wealth of material regarding Mount Sinai’s efforts vis-à-vis other institutions. This includes proposed initiatives with Columbia University, the affiliation with the City’s Queens Hospital Center and the years of controversy over privatization of the Queens’ municipal hospitals, and the School of Medicine’s affiliation contracts with Elmhurst and Queens Hospitals. There are also files relating to the Department of Geriatrics and the development of creating ties with businesses and Keio University in Japan.

The merger with New York University is documented by two distinct series of files that were received and processed separately. The “MS-NYU Initiative” files (boxes 24-25) cover the initial proposal, development and implementation of the merger. The “NYU” files (boxes 27-28) document Dr. Rowe’s service as President of the combined Mount Sinai-NYU Health following the merger and include departmental correspondence, real estate / building records, and an extensive collection of material related to the NYU Downtown Hospital.

Mount Sinai’s real estate holdings and physical facilities are documented by an extensive subject file on buildings (BLD, boxes 4-6), and its financial activities by a finance series (FIN, boxes 13-14) and an extensive series on fundraising (FND, boxes 15-20.) There is a small amount of material related to Mount Sinai School of Medicine (box 26), primarily covering commencements, convocations and honorary degrees.

Also of importance are the extensive files on the search for a new Dean in 1996/97, the many files charting Mount Sinai’s efforts to deal with the rise of AIDS in New York, and the files on establishing the Office of Technology Transfer and its later efforts, a matter of great importance to institutions in the late 20th, early 21st century.

• https://jo-cerrudo.blogspot.com/2020/04/covid-diary.html
• This blog post, written by Jocelyn Cerrudo Sese, MSN, RN, on April 19, 2020, provides a snapshot into Mount Sinai Morningside's response to COVID-19, as well as her personal experience.

• https://www.mitralvalverepair.org/
• This website documents the activities of the Mitral Valve Repair Center at the Mount Sinai Hospital.

Each report presents a variety of patient success stories, research breakthroughs, and other advances in the field involving Mount Sinai physician-scientists. Through these reports we hope to show the quality and breadth of care available at the Mount Sinai Health System, and to encourage referrals for consultations or advanced procedures.

In an interview with cardiologist Edward Dwyer, MD, he describes his attraction to medicine as a youngster after listening to a weekly science program on the radio; his decision to attend Columbia University on a baseball scholarship, and staying at Colombia for medical school (College of Physicians and Surgeons class of ’57); changes in science and medical practice between the 1950s and 1960s, and the merger between Roosevelt and St. Luke’s Hospitals in 1979, as well as other details of his medical career and life.