The Society of the New York-Lying-In Hospital opened the doors of its first facility in a house at 2 Cedar Street on August 1, 1799.

But within two years the hospital had closed because of financial difficulties. The Society immediately made an arrangement with New York Hospital, then located on the West Side of Broadway between Duane and Worth Streets, to use a ward there to continue its work.

The Society's arrangements with New York Hospital ended in 1827 when a dispute over financial matters erupted, ending the Society's active work for another quarter of a century.

During this quiescent period of the Society of the New York Lying In Hospital, a revolution had begun in the medical world. While it had been thought to be immoral for men to practice obstetrics previously, medical schools, in response to growing demand from women for competent care during pregnancy and labor, began offering lectures on the subject. Students were still left to their own devices for clinical experience. With much demand from women for care and from students for a place to practice, Dr. James Markoe and Dr. Samuel Lambert opened an independent outpatient Midwifery Dispensary at 312 Broome Street on the Lower East Side. Though the Lying In Society had been inactive, it had maintained its corporate existence, and by 1855 was actively giving money to other organizations providing services like those the Society had championed earlier. The Society's funding for the Broome Street dispensary was immediate and generous, leading the Society actually to take over the facility in 1892.