A group of physicians’ assistants and doctors hit the dance floor together. Approving hollers filled the room when New York Downtown Hospital’s chief of medicine, Dr. Bruce Logan, and plastic surgeon Dr. Victor Rosenberg were honored.

The hospital’s gala Thursday was a joyous occasion. The mood had only a little to do with the presence of the Duchess of York (who dubbed herself the Duchess of New York), the beauty of the Cipriani hall at 55 Wall Street, where the event was held (hospital trustee Giovanna Cipriani, whose family may not know how to pay taxes, clearly knows how to decorate), and the hall’s location next to new luxury condominiums and a new Tiffany store, happy signs of the neighborhood’s progress — and of potential growth for the hospital.

The main reason for the high spirits was the tight-knit sense of community that rules the hospital, and the understanding that the hospital has found its stride after the financially disastrous aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The event, which raised $1.2 million, marked the first gala for the hospital’s new president, Jeffrey Menkes, who started in May. Mr. Menkes replaces Dr. Logan, who after working at the hospital since 1979 stepped in as president after September 11, 2001, when no one would take the job. During Dr. Logan’stenure, the hospital completed the Lehman Brothers Emergency Center and established a new affiliation with the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System and its Weill Medical College.

Downtown Hospital is a community facility serving Lower Manhattan. It serves 155,000 outpatients, 6,500 surgical patients, and 33,000 emergency room patients annually.

“We don’t do brain surgery or heart transplants. We deliver babies. We provide emergency care for a young bond trader who feels chest pain at his desk,” the chairman of the hospital, Robert Hunter, said. The staff takes pride in the hospital’s history. Almost anyone who works there can tell a visitor that Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children in 1857. The hospital later merged with Beekman Hospital to form Downtown Hospital. It has not only served the poor, but also has a long history of responding to violent acts: in 1920, when a bomb went off outside the headquarters of JP Morgan; in 1975, when a Puerto Rican nationalist group, FALN, bombed Fraunces Tavern, and in 1993 and 2001 at the World Trade Center.

Architect David Childs, a partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, received the hospital’s Community Service Award. His office is next to Trinity Church, so he is familiar with the hospital, though he has never been a patient there.

“I love downtown. It’s amazing how things have rebounded,” Mr. Childs said. He said he would consider moving downtown from Carnegie Hill were it not for his dog Lucy. “I have a hyperactive fox terrier that needs Central Park,” he said.

When he started at Yale University as an undergraduate, Mr. Childs intended to become a doctor. “I majored in zoology,” he said. He turned to architecture when he realized he liked drawing the animals more than dissecting them, he said.

agordon@nysun.com