Borough of Rivers

Pediatric patients stepping inside the murals on their hospital walls

Children receiving recurring infusion treatments spend hours in the same clinical rooms, week after week. Montefiore's Fine Art Program had covered those walls in murals of the Bronx by artist Jennifer Maravillas — and Borough of Rivers let patients step inside them. In a magical world where the hospital becomes the trunk of an enormous tree above rivers and Bronx landmarks, children in different rooms could meet, talk, and explore together, with wings for flying and enchanted tools that filled the world with creatures. A synchronized AR companion mode let family and clinicians on tablets see into the shared world. When children removed the headset, the murals around them depicted places they had just explored — the hospital itself had become part of the story.