Kenneth C. Appell, MD Gallery

Kenneth and Marcella Appell Revisit Their Old Neighborhood, Astoria Queens

2009-08-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

.
A sentimental journey in August 2009:

In front of the old theater on Astoria's much-changed central thoroughfare, Steinway Street.

In front of Ken's old home on 2515 42nd Street:

Marcy's old apartment building at address TK:

At St Joseph's Church (30th Avenue/42nd Street), where they wed on July 31, 1959:

Ken at his old grammar school, P.S. 70, at 30-45 42nd Street:

Kenneth Appell Speaks at the Vascular Access Society of the Americas, November 2007

2009-02-24T18:56:00.000-08:00

.
Images of Dr. Appell at the New York City meeting of the Vascular Access Society of the Americas at the Veith Symposium on November 14, 2007. He was invited to give an address describing the circumstances surrounding his historic development of the AV fistula.

Kenneth Appell Weds Marcella Varmuza, July 1949

2009-02-04T16:19:00.000-08:00

Ken Appell came back on summer break from his studies at Georgetown University School of Medicine to marry fiancée Marcella Varmuza, and the ceremony was performed on July 29 at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church at 30th Avenue and 42rd Street in Astoria, Queens (below, pictured in December 2008).

The reception was held at a well-known Woodside restaurant called Paprin's, at Roosevelt Avenue and 61st Street (seen above in a postcard from the 1940's).

Ken Appell's First Job: The New York Public Library

2009-01-28T13:44:00.000-08:00

.
.
While attending Manhattan College in the Bronx in 1940-42, Ken helped pay for school by working with his boyhood friend Arthur Barnett at the information desk in the card catalogue room (room 315) of the midtown Manhattan main branch of the New York Public Library (exterior at top in 2009, reading room below as it appeared in a Life magazine photo from 1944). His job was twofold: he would send patrons' request slips down to the stack via pneumatic tube (which required him to memorize which Dewey decimal numbers corresponded to which stacks), and also replaced the long, narrow card-catalogue drawers that patrons would regularly leave on the desks after using.

"I would try to get some studying done," he recalled, "and so I would let the drawers accumulate on the desks. But I came up with a technique that let me replace them very fast all at once. So every once in a while I would whip around the room, bam-bam-bam-bam! It got pretty noisy."

Ken worked Mondays through Thursdays after classes, from 5 to 10 pm, as well as afternoons every other weekend, for the munificent sum of 15 to 20 cents an hour. His name is inscribed on plaque at the library honoring employees who went off to service in World War II.

P.S. 70, Kenneth Appell’s Elementary School in Astoria, Queens

2009-01-07T06:50:00.000-08:00

.

Pictured in December 2008 -- largely unchanged from when five-year-old Ken entered kindergarten in 1928 and then attended through eighth grade – New York Public School 70 is located at 30-45 42nd Street in Astoria and is named after a New York police lieutenant, Joe Petrosino (1860-1909), famed for his fight against organized crime. Today P.S. 70 serves just over 1,000 students pre-K-5.

Kenneth Appell’s Childhood Home in Astoria, Queens, New York

2008-12-31T10:50:00.000-08:00

.
Kenneth Appell was born on Manhattan's Upper East Side, but spent much of his childhood and young adulthood in a house two blocks east of Queens’ iconic Steinway Street (named after the 150-year-old Steinway piano factory). Young Kenneth’s home from the age of four was at 2515 42nd Street, a simple brick two-family house bought by his parents in 1927 (seen in two views below in December 2008, at far left in second picture, its façade has remained practically unchanged in 80 years). He lived in the house with his parents and sister Florence -- and eventually her husband John, as well -- until he went into the Navy in 1942, and then again in 1946-47 while attending Manhattan College. His mother passed away in the house in 1929, his father in 1969, and Florrie and John continued to live here until the 1980’s, when they retired and moved to Sag Harbor, on Long Island’s south fork. Meanwhile, Ken’s grandparents, aunt, and uncle lived right next door; and it was his grandmother, Frances Bartunek, who essentially raised him after his mother’s passing.
.

In the 1920's, this neighborhood was fairly new, settled by Czechs, Slovaks, and other Slavs as well as Italians, Greeks, and Germans (see two views below). Today, some of these ethnic groups are still in evidence, but it’s become much more diverse, including for example Colombians, Israelis, Koreans. The stretch of Steinway near Ken Appell’s childhood home has especially attracted immigrants from Muslim countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, and Bosnia; there’s even a mosque practically around the corner from where he grew up (last picture below).

The house at 2515 42nd Street:

A colorized shot of Steinway Street at 30th Avenue in the 1920's:

The Loew's Triboro Theater on Steinway Street at 28th Avenue in 1931:

Steinway Street at 25th Avenue in December 2008:

Ken Appell re-visits Barcelona, Spain

2008-12-23T20:55:00.000-08:00

.

Kenneth Appell with his wife Marcella in Barcelona, Spain, in 2006. They are pictured in Placa del Rei, in the Gothic Quarter.

Kenneth Appell With Children in Port Chester, New York

2008-11-23T18:46:00.000-08:00

.
In May 1967, Dr. Appell enjoys a Sunday morning with his young children David and Ann on the back stoop of his home on King Street in the Westchester County city of Port Chester.

Kenneth Appell With Wife Marcella in 1970

2008-10-31T13:42:00.000-07:00

.

Ken Appell shares a nice moment with his wife Marcy at a Christmas family reunion at the Queens apartment of his sister and brother-in-law in 1970.

Kenneth Appell as a medical student

2008-10-23T19:38:00.000-07:00

.

Kenneth Appell on Long Island Sound in 1949, while he was a medical student at Georgetown University School of Medicine.

Kenneth Appell At Home on His Tractor

2008-10-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

.
Ken Appell has been physically active all his life, and the 18 acres of land attached to the home in Dutchess County, New York, in which he's lived since the late 1970's has afforded ample opportunity to get out and exercise, whether it's gardening, mowing, building stone walls, or chopping wood, and so on. Here he's shown in summer 1992 on the John Deere tractor he uses to mow all that acreage.

Naval Cadet Kenneth Appell during World War II

2008-09-30T17:15:00.001-07:00

.
In 1943, Kenneth Appell was transferred from Lambert Field in St. Louis to navel cadet school in Pensacola, Florida; he received his commission at his following posting, Jacksonville.

Kenneth Appell tries a sailplane

2008-09-30T13:39:00.001-07:00

.

Even today, Dr. Appell is always up for new experiences. In this picture, taken in the latge 1980's, he prepares to take a ride in a sailplane in Elmyra, New York.

Kenneth Appell in 1959, early in his career

2008-09-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

.

In February 1959, early in his medical career, Dr. Appell relaxes at his sister's home in Astoria, Queens.

Kenneth Appell's Alma Mater: Georgetown University Medical School

2008-09-03T13:12:00.000-07:00

.
After graduating from New York City's Manhattan College, in 1947 Kenneth Appell moved with his fiancée Marcella to Washington DC to begin postgraduate work at the Jesuit-run Georgetown University School of Medicine. Living in an apartment on the Anacostia neighborhood's Ridge Road, just off Fort Dumont Park and across the river from Capitol Hill, while Ken attended classes Marcy worked at a large K Street real estate company. They spent four years in DC, during which time they returned to their old neighborhood in Astoria, Queens to get married, in 1949, and Ken graduated from Georgetown in 1951 with honors, including the class' gold medal in pathology.

Kenneth Appell's Alma Mater: Manhattan College

2008-08-30T06:46:00.000-07:00

.

Kenneth Appell matriculated in 1939 at Manhattan College in the Riverdale section of the Bronx; it's a four-year Roman Catholic liberal arts institution, run in the tradition of the church's Lasallian order and founded in 1853 by the followers of 18th-century St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle. Following a biology/pre-med major, his undergraduate studies were interrupted for four years by military sevice, and he finally graduated in 1947.

Dr. Kenneth Appell With Wife and Daughter, 1970

2008-08-20T18:25:00.000-07:00

.Kenneth Appell enjoys breakfast in the summer of 1970 with his wife Marcy and daughter Ann, on the porch of their home on Aspinwall Road in the Linden Acres neighborhood of Red Hook, New York.

Dr. Kenneth Appell With Colleagues At Northern Dutchess Hospital

2008-08-15T11:19:00.000-07:00

.

Pictured in the 1990's, here Dr. Appell relaxes, post-surgery, with staff members at Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck, New York.

Very Young Kenneth With Grandparents and Sister

2008-08-13T12:46:00.000-07:00

.
Kenneth Appell at age four in 1927, during summer vacation at a rented cottage on Staten Island's south shore with his sister Florence and his grandparents Anton and Frances Bartunek, immigrants from Bohemia (then part of Czechoslovakia, today of the Czech Republic).

Hemodialysis Before Kenneth Appell Invented the AV Fistula

2008-08-12T16:32:00.000-07:00

.

These photos taken in 1964-65 at the Bronx VA Hospital's dialysis unit show the Kolff artificial kidney (invented in the early 1940's by Willem Kolff in the Netherlands -- interestingly, during the Nazi occupation of that country) used with the Scribner external shunt (developed by University of Washington faculty member Belding Scribner in 1960).

Kenneth Appell's Commendation from the Vascular Access Society of the Americas for Inventing the AV Fistula

2008-08-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

.

When Dr. Appell spoke at the New York City meeting of the Vascular Access Society of the Americas at the Veith Symposium on November 14, 2007, he was presented with a plaque signed by president A. Frederick Schild, M.D. and second vice president Larry A. Scher, M.D. It stated: "Honorary Membership is bestowed upon Kenneth C. Appell, M.D. for his pioneering efforts and landmark development as the surgeon who performed the first arteriovenous fistula for hemodialysis access over forty years ago. His contributions have immeasurably benefitted countless patients undergoing treatment for end-stage renal disease."

Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck, NY

2008-08-10T16:40:00.000-07:00

.Northern Dutchess Hospital, pictured in August 2008. Dr. Kenneth Appell moved to the area from Westchester County with his wife and two young children in 1969. He eventually became Chief of Surgery and even in semi-retirement still regularly assists in the operating room today.

James Wing, MD, Kenneth Appell's Longtime Partner

2008-08-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

.
Based at Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck, New York, Jim Wing moved to the area and became Ken Appell's partner in 1988. Here he's pictured at his home in August 2008.

Kenneth Appell, AV Fistula Inventor, With Bronx VA Colleagues

2008-08-10T16:31:00.001-07:00

.

Kenneth C. Appell, the surgeon who invented the arteriovenous fistula, flanked by James Cimino, head of the Bronx VA Hospital's nephrology department, and dialysis team member Michael Brescia, in 1967.

AV Fistula Drawing, 1966

2008-08-10T16:18:00.000-07:00

.
Artist's rendering of Kenneth Appell's AV fistula, dated July 18, 1966.

AV fistula close-up, Bronx VA 1965

2008-08-10T08:31:00.000-07:00

.

A photo of one of the first AV fistulas ever performed, by Kenneth Appell at the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital on March 26, 1965.

Ken Appell With His Young Daughter in 1971

2008-08-10T08:02:00.001-07:00

.

Kenneth Appell with his daughter Ann Marie at age 5.

Young Ken Appell and His Dog Terry

2008-08-08T07:09:00.001-07:00

.
Kenneth Appell at age 10, in 1933, with his fox terrier Terry, named after the title character in the popular comic strip "Terry and the Pirates."

WWII Pilot Ken Appell

2008-08-05T13:45:00.001-07:00

.
Dr. Kenneth Appell flew missions in the Pacific for the U.S. Navy during the Second World War. Here he's shown during training at Lambert Field in St. Louis.

Dr. Appell in the Operating Room, 2002

2008-08-05T07:25:00.001-07:00

.
Kenneth Appell, left, performing surgery at Rhinebeck's Northern Dutchess Hospital in 2002.

Arranging to Meet Dr. Polo

2008-08-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

.On vacation in November 2004 in the Asturian town of Cangas de Onís in northern Spain, Dr. Appell (pictured here by the old Roman Bridge with wife Marcy and son David), arranges to meet Dr. Polo in Madrid the next day.

Touring Italy, 2007

2008-08-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

.
Here Dr. Appell and his wife Marcy take in the sweeping panorama from the hilltop principality of San Marino, in north central Italy.

Dr. Appell meets Dr. Polo

2008-08-02T21:10:00.000-07:00

Dr. Appell and wife Marcy finally meet Dr. José Ramón Polo and his wife MariLuz at Madrid's famous Lhardy restaurant in November 2004. After hearing Dr. Appell's story at a conference in Phoenix in 1988, Dr. Polo embarked on the mission of revindicating his place in history as the inventor of the AV Fistula. It would take him 16 years to track Dr. Appell down.