Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Polaroid snapshot of a white Ford F-150 pickup truck parked on Fourth Street, just west of Wells Street, in the Bloomingdale neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
It has the Spanish phrase "Super Bueno" (Super Good) written on the tailgate in permanent marker; and a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a popular Mexican representation of the Virgin Mary, on the rear window.
I photographed it in the early evening.
10-30-22
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Polaroid photograph of the demolition of Saint Joseph Hospital on the corner of Broadway and Main Street in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. Most of the hospital has been pulled down, leaving only this small tower, which had been the north end of the building.
Workers on a manlift are attaching cables to the exposed steel frame of the building. The other end of each cable will be attached to one of the excavators that had been used to break apart the lower walls. The plan is to have the machines pull the building down. An attempt was made later in the evening, but it failed.
10-31-22
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Polaroid photograph of the demolition of Saint Joseph Hospital on the corner of Broadway and Main Street in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. Most of the hospital has been pulled down, leaving only this small tower, which had been the north end of the building.
I made this photograph in the evening, not long before sunset. The sky had been cloudy all evening, but for a brief moment, the sun broke through the clouds and bathed the top of the tall remains of the old hospital in warm light.
Founded in 1869, Saint Joseph Hospital was the oldest hospital in Fort Wayne. It closed in November, 2021 and demolition began in 2022.
Originally a Roman Catholic hospital, Saint Joseph was sold years ago to a big for-profit company that also owns Lutheran Hospital and Dupont Hospital in Fort Wayne. The company built a new, much smaller hospital one block over on the corner of Main Street and Van Buren Street to replace the aging Saint Joseph Hospital. The Saint Joseph name was not kept; the new hospital is called "Lutheran Downtown."
10-31-22
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Polaroid photograph of the demolition of Saint Joseph Hospital on the corner of Broadway and Main Street in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Most of the hospital is gone; leaving only this part, which had been the north end of the building. Previous attempts to pull down the building had failed because the steel frame of the hospital was too strongly built. Workers on a manlift inspect the frame, looking for places to weaken it with cutting torches.
11-2-22
Pál_K
Cameras. I has it.
They should remove the debris, but leave the last intractable part as a memento of the former hospital’s glory.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
That would have been great. Unfortunately, they did finally manage to pull down the 'tower' on November 3. I have photos of it falling, but am scanning and adding them to my website in the order I shot them so it'll be next week before I have the last of them up.
Pál_K
Cameras. I has it.
Too bad nothing was saved. Sometimes it’s good to save a little bit of history. Today in Budapest some buildings still have battle damage from the 1956 uprising.
I was interested enough to look at a few Google Street View images of that hospital - they have views from 2019 all the way back to 2007. It looks nice. I’ve noticed that some hospitals really have admirable architecture. The large General Hospital in Los Angeles is massive, imposing, and has a wonderful Art Deco appearance. I visited it once, long ago.
I was interested enough to look at a few Google Street View images of that hospital - they have views from 2019 all the way back to 2007. It looks nice. I’ve noticed that some hospitals really have admirable architecture. The large General Hospital in Los Angeles is massive, imposing, and has a wonderful Art Deco appearance. I visited it once, long ago.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
The new hospital has no architectural beauty. Just an ugly gray pile.
What's really crazy is that when they moved to the new hospital, they left behind a huge amount of old but still functional and useful medical equipment! The demolition company's people went through the building and removed all the stuff that was still in good condition and donated it to a charity that provides equipment to hospitals in poor countries. The company that owned Saint Joseph just left it to be buried in the rubble when the building came down, no effort to either profit from selling the stuff or do good by donating it. The demolition company asked them if it was ok for them to donate the stuff and the hospital management said they didn't care what was done with it. Fortunately, the demolition people thought of donating the stuff.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Polaroid photograph of the demolition of Saint Joseph Hospital on the corner of Broadway and Main Street in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Most of the hospital is gone; leaving only this part, which had been the north end of the building. Sparks fly as workers on a manlift use cutting torches to weaken the building's steel frame, which has resisted several attempts to pull it down. A big trailer loaded with scrap metal stands in front of the building.
11-2-22
About The Hospital:
Founded in 1869, Saint Joseph Hospital was the oldest hospital in Fort Wayne. It closed in November, 2021 and demolition began in 2022.
Originally a Roman Catholic hospital, Saint Joseph was sold years ago to a big for-profit company that also owns Lutheran Hospital and Dupont Hospital in Fort Wayne. The company built a new, much smaller hospital one block over on the corner of Main Street and Van Buren Street to replace the aging Saint Joseph Hospital. The Saint Joseph name was not kept; the new hospital is called "Lutheran Downtown."
Retro-Grouch
Veteran
Something to think about next time you get an insane medical bill. Somebody had to pay for that stuff. Guess who?
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Polaroid photograph of the demolition of Saint Joseph Hospital on the corner of Broadway and Main Street in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Most of the hospital is gone; leaving only this part, which had been the north end of the building. Workers on a manlift examine the steel frame of the building, which has resisted several attempts to pull the building down.
11-2-22
BillBingham2
Registered User
Odds are it's owned by a Venture Capital company (aka, the type of company that provides a new low in caring about anyone but them).
Three cheers for the demolition company. They are the ones who if Saint Joseph were around would be proud of them finding good in the hospital that was named after him.
So much of our world here in the states is thought of as disposable. After Katrina my wife came up with the idea of putting people up in abandoned hospitals, factories, shopping malls. Have them work to refurbish where they live. At the time there was a LARGE facility up in Northern Illinois that Motorola dumped that would have been perfect. Lots of malls all over.
Thanks for documenting our world in a wonderful way.
B2
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
It is owned by a publicly traded corporation called Community Health Systems. Not quite as bad as venture capital, but close. Two companies own all of Fort Wayne's hospitals. CHS owns Lutheran, Lutheran Downtown, and Dupont Hospital. Parkview Health, which is a Ft. Wayne-based chain, owns a number of small-town hospitals in northeast Indiana and two large hospitals in Fort Wayne.
Parkview is even worse in my opinion. CHS admits to being a for-profit corporation, so they are honest about what they are. Parkview claims to be non-profit, but acts worse than a for-profit. They bought the naming rights to Fort Wayne's minor-league baseball stadium, something no non-profit should be doing; and they were cited by the New York Times for being one of the most expensive hospital in the country! They're as rapacious as a business, and could really be seen as worse; yet their non-profit status means they pay no taxes, cheating the government and every American individual and every honest business that does pay taxes.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Polaroid photograph of the demolition of Saint Joseph Hospital on the corner of Broadway and Main Street in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Most of the hospital is gone; leaving only this part, which had been the north end of the building. I made this photograph at the end of the day, at sunset. The remnants of Saint Joseph Hospital were pulled down the next day using excavators connected to the building's frame with steel cables.
11-2-22
About The Hospital:
Founded in 1869, Saint Joseph Hospital was the oldest hospital in Fort Wayne. It closed in November, 2021 and demolition began in 2022.
Originally a Roman Catholic hospital, Saint Joseph was sold years ago to a big for-profit company that also owns Lutheran Hospital and Dupont Hospital in Fort Wayne. The company built a new, much smaller hospital one block over on the corner of Main Street and Van Buren Street to replace the aging Saint Joseph Hospital. The Saint Joseph name was not kept; the new hospital is called "Lutheran Downtown."
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Sequence of photos showing the final collapse of the last remaining part of Saint Joseph Hospital in Fort Wayne. The demolition had begun in the spring of this year and the last part fell on the evening of November 3. It was pulled down by excavators using steel cables attached to the frame of the structure. It had withstood a number of attempts to pull it down over the preceding week. After each failure, the demolition crew used cutting torches to weaken parts of the frame.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Hope everyone is having a happy Thanksgiving!
Polaroid snapshot of a yellow fire hydrant in front of the Fort Wayne Newspapers building on the corner of Main Street and Broadway in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. Someone has drawn a face on it with black marker.
11-4-22
farlymac
PF McFarland
They built them to last back then. The company that tore down the old railroad shop buildings I used to work in took three months just to take down the stairwell/elevator shaft of the last one standing. It was nowhere near anything it could damage yet the city wouldn't let them blast it.
PF
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
The last section of Saint Joe probably wasn't as old as your railroad buildings; it was added to the building in the 1980s...but they certainly don't build them like that today! I wonder why the city wouldn't let them demolish that railroad building with explosives? Fort Wayne's government said no to that because the new hospital was across the street and behind the old hospital was the eastern edge of the historic West Central neighborhood, full of big, fancy houses built in the 19th Century (as early as the 1840s). Too much risk of something flying off and hurting one of those old homes.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
After watching the Fourth of July fireworks in downtown Fort Wayne, I saw Superman standing in a window at the Rousseau Centre, on the side of the building facing Calhoun Street.
The Rousseau Centre, originally known as the City-County Building, is a government office building on the corner of Main Street and Calhoun Street in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was built in the late 1970s to serve as the home of the governments of Allen County and the City of Fort Wayne. In 2011, most of the city government offices were moved to the new Citizens Square building, leaving the City-County Building to the county government. In 2012, it was renamed the Rousseau Centre in honor of Ed Rousseau, a local politician who died in 2009.
7-4-22
farlymac
PF McFarland
Yes, most of those structures were put up during WWI, though a couple of them on the eastern end of the yard dated back to the 1890's. I think the main issue on not allowing the demolition crew to blast the stairwell was the new Interstate expansion which ran right through what used to be the B&O/Pennsylvania mainline into downtown Columbus, OH had already opened up and they felt it was too much of a hassle to close it down for the operation.
PF