Wednesday, December 24, 2008
This is an old post. See my latest visit here.
Nearby, we found an old bridge and the ruins of what appears to be an old brewery.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
City Hospital was originally built in 1846. Well the first one was, but it burned to the ground 10 years later. So the new City Hospital was built in 1857... But then the "Great Cyclone" of 1896 hit Saint Louis and utterly destroyed the hospital. So the new, new, City Hospital was eventually built in 1906. And it only expanded from there. By 1970 there were 12 buildings on site. But only 15 years later, in 1985, the institution moved and abandoned its former home.
I don't have many regrets, but I do regret missing out on City Hospital in all its abandoned glory. It was a massive old hospital. And as far as abandoned hospitals go, at least around here, it was second to none. It's still a legendary place even though most of the buildings are gone now. Thankfully, however the main building remains. Sure it has been renovated into condos for wealthy city folk who are probably the same kind of people that would have been petitioning for its demolition just a decade ago, calling it an "eyesore". But it still stands and for that I'm thankful. But I'm mad at myself for not getting myself out here just a little sooner..
I was aware of the old outbuildings and their ongoing renovation, but it was too much of a tease to me to go explore some gutted remnants of what used to be an insanely awesome location. Despite this, however, we decided we might as well get one last look at the abandoned structures here before they're renovated for good. So today we set out. It was supposed to be a group of us heading out, but it ended up just being myself and one other person. Which was fine, 'cause we spent all day exploring and hit up several different locations. One had an alarm, one was an old refrigeration/cold storage building but we were run off by a homeless resident. Four of them were part of a Hospital complex undergoing renovation, one was an abandoned wing of a hospital connected via an unlocked door to the active wing and the last was an old school built in 1925. Good times. So for this post, I now present what's left of the infamous City Hospital complex:
First stop was the Power Building. This was the most intact of all the remaining structures. Some equipment was left in piles just waiting to be taken to a recycler. The other buildings, I was less sure about. I know one was the laundry building. The others were too gutted to identify. There was an unexpected bonus here though. Tunnels! Indeed, tunnels connected all the buildings here at one time. And they continued on towards the main hospital building, which is now the Georgian Condos. The condo tunnels were, however, sealed by the time of our visit.
