Left to right: John Starks, a former Knicks player; Dan Ronayne, MSG media; and Adam Graves, a former Rangers player, with two young patients at Friday's ribbon-cutting.
How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
Children at the NYU Langone Medical Center now have something to look forward to during their stay: their own television network.
On Friday, NYU Langone unveiled the new "mobile studio," comprised of a portable set of cameras and technical equipment meant to allow young patients to create films and broadcast through a closed-circuit channel within the hospital.
Dubbed MSG Mobile Studio, the studio was made possible by a partnership with MSG Media, a television network at Madison Square Garden and the non-profit charity The Garden of Dreams Foundation.
Tina Cervasio, a MSG Network reporter, presented the studio to about 20 young patients at the Friday ribbon-cutting ceremony, most of whom were in wheelchairs.
"It's like MSG Network is coming to you guys here at NYU medical center," Cervasio said. "You guys have your own network, and you're going to be the stars of your own network."
Using the studio, children from NYU Langone's Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, Tisch Hospital and the Stephen D. Hassenfeld Children's Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders will be able to create their own shows and interview other patients, hospital staff and special guests. At Friday's opening, John Starks, a former New York Knicks basketball player, and Adam Graves, a former New York Rangers hockey player, were the children's first interviewees at the studio.
Marianne Hardart, assistant therapeutic recreation director of NYU Langone's Child Life and Creative Arts Therapies Department, said the studio is beneficial for the children at NYU Langone.
"It's really a way for them to take control of this environment where they have no control," she said.
Robert DiMatteo, 13 and a patient at the hospital since Aug. 29 due to a neurological syndrome that affects his spine, believes the studio provides a great opportunity for young patients.
"It will give them self-esteem because they can see themselves on TV," DiMatteo said.
