. >> my old kentucky home steven foster. >> that is correct. lead belly. >> reporter: lead belly even wrote a song about his stay at the hospital. >> i went one morning in bellevue. i saw miss johnson. must have been a nurse. she was new. so long. >> reporter: and singer john lennon was brought here after he was shot, along with his assassin. >> and one of the great ironies of the story, mark chapman was being examined by psychiatrists probably 100 feet away from where john lennon's body was in the morgue. >> reporter: but it was the 1989 murder at bellevue of dr. katherine hement that shook the institution to its core. >> a homeless man who had been living illegally in bellevue hospital killed a pregnant pathologist in her office. and it caused an absolute furor. and bellevue really had to decide at that moment, are we a hospital that provides emergency services to everybody, or are we a bus station? >> reporter: in the end, security was ramped up and bellevue did not abandon its mission as a public hospital. dr. susan cohen has been at the ho