The new 250,000-sf facility, designed by NBBJ of Columbus, OH, is named after Maria Fareri, a 13-year-old Greenwich CT, youngster who passed away five years ago after contracting rabies from a bat bite.

"Today, we break ground for the Maria Fareri Children's Hospital and new regional Trauma Center and begin building a world-class facility like no other on the East Coast, for the children and adults of the Hudson Valley and beyond," says Edward Stolzenberg, president and chief executive officer of Westchester Medical Center. "At Westchester Medical Center we already have physicians and nursing staff who are among the best in the world, and soon we will have a facility that will be of equal quality."

The hospital and trauma center, when completed by the spring of 2003, will include a separate children's emergency department, a family resource center where parents can obtain information about disease and treatments from a variety of sources including on-line computer searches, consultation rooms, a food court and community conference center, kitchen facilities, a children's pre-operative learning center and 60 pediatric rooms.