Then and Now
July 21, 2010 (Wednesday)
The nice thing about the Internet is that it’s always ready to show you something you may have never seen before. A few minutes ago I looked up a photograph of the Methodist Hospital in Houston that was built in 1919, and it was there waiting for me to take a look.
I looked it up because I visited the Methodist Hospital complex in the Texas Medical Center Monday and was overwhelmed by its size. It is a magnificent collection of buildings on both sides of Fannin Street, all of them connected either directly or by walkways which blend in so well that I never knew when I was in a building or a walkway. A thoughtful man in medical garb saw my bewildered expression, I suppose, and asked me if he could help me. I said “yes” and he did.
I couldn’t help remembering a visit, as a teenager, to the old Methodist hospital (long since demolished) near downtown. I wondered if there might be a picture of it on the Internet and, sure enough, there is. It, too, became a collection of buildings of various types of architecture.
Here in the Heights there is a strong movement to preserve the old buildings. Houston, however, is not known for its preservation of the past. It is always moving forward, and leaving the past behind. Almost every landmark associated with my youth is now gone forever, and something else has taken its place. Such is progress.
Back to hospitals, Spohn Shoreline Hospital in Corpus Christi is typical of how hospitals have changed and grown through the years. I watched it grow, almost like a living organism, from my first visit there in 1964 to the present day. Dr. Spohn’s first hospital was on North Beach 100 yards from Corpus Christi Bay in its first location. Hospitals back then had no private rooms, and precious little technology. The German word for hospital is krankenhaus, which literally means, “sick house.” Hospitals are so much more than that today.