I know this is actually in Evergreen Park, but thought it relevant. LCM Hospital was built in the 1930s and the main building is really impressive, in the shape of a cross. Unfortunately, I found out today that it is going to be torn down!!!! The hospital itself isn't going anywhere, they are building newer, more modern buildings - ugh. Coincidentally, I was driving on 95th St yesterday and noticing the drastic change in that area that has happened in just the last few years from about California east to Damen. I tried to take a picture of the hospital, but decided to come back later to get a better shot. In light of what I found out today, time is of the essence. The article that I read was in the Oak Lawn Reporter and said that it won't happen until next year and demolition won't be done until the new building is complete. So, some more history falls to progress.

I can't believe that I didn't see any of these articles!
Here's a link to one that was in the Southtown Star Dec 7 2007:

http://www.lcmh.org/documents/Tranformation/120707.PDF

They also razed 15 homes to accomodate the project. Wow.

View from California Ave, 1 block north of 95th St...the main entrance used to be at the left, where the new addition is, and ran all the way to 95th Street.



Little Company of Mary made history in 1950 when it was the first hospital to perform an organ transplant, kidney.

The most drastic change along the strip of 95th street that you mentioned is from California to Western, along the north side of 95th. The Martinique/Drury Lane dinner theatre was completely leveled for a Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and other smaller strip mall.

I always liked that building, especially the two different colored bricks used. My earliest memory of it was when I was about 2 years old and my dad was in the hospital. They would not allow children up into the wards, so my mother would bring me to a spot outside and we would stand outside and wave up at him in his room. Then, and this will show my age, she took me across to Evergreen Plaza to The Fair store to eat in the cafeteria on the 2nd floor.
As for Martinique/Drury Lane - the countless weddings, dinner dances, plays, misc parties that I attended there over the years, including my own First Communion party! Luckily, I got over there just prior to demolition and took a bunch of pictures, especially of that great old neon sign.
This will be one very drastic change to the landscape that will very difficult to come to terms with, at least for me. Too much of my time in earlier years was spent around that area.

Another historic structure that is not even really that old will vanish into the annuls of time. In this day and age, no one wants to spend the money to upgrade these old buildings. It is cheaper to build new. With all of the fire codes, ADA act, and other rules that don't seem to favor old buildings, there is really no hope. That is of course unless someone has some big bucks to save the structures and make a second hand book store out of it or something. Hospitals in Chicagoland are facing a crises of their own. With the new attitudes of the newer generations, quality of care is outshined by fancy facilities. RUSH for instance, is having to build a new hospital wing , eliminating the neonate and general care nursery building. All of the doctors from RUSH are going to Northwestern, because the patients want the fancy T.V. sets and stereo systems. I hear they are going to tear Sven Hall down also -a real shame. But then again, the vacant old County Hospital is standing by the skin if it's teeth thanks to concerned citizens I guess.

I have been to England on a few occasions and had the opportunity to get a tour of Southampton with the local BBC historian, and I mean the "real" tour - as in under grade rooms and so on. I walked into an 11th Century Church and was taken aback. In fact there was so much history in old So'ton, that I got a headache. Heck, the Pilgrims left form Southampton, and the gates of the city they they walked through to get on the Mayflower are still there!!! (yea yea they left form Plymouth - but not really. They left from Southampton first with two ships, and on the way out, the second ship started taking on water, so they stopped off at Plymouth and transferred what they could to the Mayflower - so Southampton says anyway). In any case, the English historian wondered why I was so taken aback by an 11th Century church, after al there are many buildings hundreds of years old in the UK. I said "I'm from Chicago". Your lucky to find anything 100 years old let alone 900. Yes sure America is only a little over 200 years old, but there is practically nothing in Chicago or her suburbs left that reflects the Pioneers of the 1830's, and certainly nothing left having to do with French Occupation!!! History - Huh - tear it down, and don't even take photos while your doing it. No one cares.


Sorry for the rant, but I feel sorry for that poor hospital building. Then again, who wants to pay for it? must be hell to heat that thing.



Bruce



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2008 05:17AM by Bruce.

If there is anything that could possibly stand the test of time in this country, it should be those beautiful old churches that were built around the turn of the century, but even those are becoming extinct. It looks like St Boniface, at Chestnut and Noble is probably coming down. Vacant for 20 years, it was built around 1903.

The tradition always was in this country that if a structure doesn't serve a financial purpose, it's useless.

There are actually a few cruciform hospital buildings in Chicago. Holy Cross and Loretto in the Ghetto, for example. Both have had newer additions, because, well, pretty as the are, cross-shaped buildings aren't very practical nowadays. Since we've gotten ERs, trauma units, cath labs, CT scanners, MRIs, ICUs, NICUs, and psychiatric facilities that need their own specific layouts, a lot of the older hospital buildings are going. It's not really about fancy TVs, there are a lot of things that need to be changed beyond a simple face lift---eliminating double (or triple, or quadruple) patient rooms, for example.

I was born here on December 6th -- we won't discuss the year.

Anyway, the family story is that when the nun brought me into my mom's room she asked Mom what they were going to name me. Mom told her "Oh, we were thinking about David and Nicholas and (there was a third name I don't recall.)"

The nun said, "Oh, yes. Today is St. Nicholas day."

And, supposedly, that's how I got my name.

Scribble is right. Stately as these hospitals may be they are not able to handle the requirements of 21st century medicine -- wider halls, single rooms, climate control, air filtering, fiber optic cables, etc. LCM had to be retrofitted for air conditioning! Often it's more expensive to retrofit than just build new.

I worked at LCH a long, long time ago....and it was OLD at that time!!!!! Remember when there were still Personell Departments? I always thought we could make a horror movie there.

I spent 2 weeks in the east wing(old section) which was yet to be air conditioned. It was in june of 72 and very hot and sticky.I think mid to upper 90's.I still can remember the Cecadas on window screens while I drank beers my friends smuggled in! Definitely made the stay a bit more pleasant. I also met a a couple nurses/students whom I consequently ran into during my visits to Marquette Park.God it was nice being young!

It's a neat building and would have made cool apartments. A note to Bruce - Britain demolished more in the 60's than was destroyed during WWII.

Ever notice the similarity of the old LCM complex to the old Edgewater Beach Hotel?

TNF - it was a typical plan solution to minimize elevators and maximize exposure before air conditioning. Lots of apartment buildings in DC have that plan too.

davey7...thanks. Always wondered about that.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2012 05:16AM by silliker.