Past Post: U.S. Public Health Service Hospital
May 1st, 2008 @ 1:23 am by Cliffe | Sorted Past Post |
With Amazon.com
announcing their plans to move to South Lake Union, the future of the iconic headquarters atop Beacon Hill is uncertain. A number of potential future tenants
have already been in talks with the company’s landlord. Will it be more biotech? Condos? Hard to say right now. The Art Deco Marine Hospital operated until it was closed in the late eighties. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and granted landmark status in 1992. Check out this postcard from the 50′s/60′s.
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U.S. Public Health Service Hospital, Seattle, Washington. “This 323 bed hospital located at 1131 14th Avenue South was built on land donated by the City of Seattle and was opened in 1933. It is devoted to the care of certain classes of legal beneficiaries of the Federal Government. These include American Merchant Seamen, members of the U.S. Coast Guard, members of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, Government employees when injured in line of duty, dependents of members of the uniformed services and others. It is staffed by Commissioned Officers and Civil Service Employees of the Public Health Service.”
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I always appreciate postcards that highlight a city’s somewhat drab infrastructure…
“Hi Gladys! Enjoy this postcard of the Department of Retirement Systems nondescript lobby!”
“Steve, I’m having a great time here in Seattle. Check out the postcard. It’s Seattle’s City Auditor. Sweet!”
“I hope things are going well, Dill. My adventures to the great Pacific Northwest have been a dream! Don’t believe me? The front of this postcard says it all – an action shot of a Port of Seattle Commission meeting! Eat your heart out, Dill!”
Or how about the goofy postcards from motels that make it sound like a Holiday Inn knockoff when they are most likely a haven for transients and illegal activity?
“Hi, mom, the motor hotel has got such great conveniences. You get to park the car in front of your room! That’s innovation.”
“Gus, I love this place! It has a switchboard, TV and I didn’t miss one episode of 77 Sunset Strip while I was gone. Gladys.”
My maternal grandfather, Thomas Henry Hawkes, was a Merchant Seaman with the Alaska Steamship lines.
He died of stomach ulcers in this hospital in the early 1940′s. Nobody dies of ulcers today.
He went to sea as a cabin boy on a whaling ship out of Bath, Maine at the age of fourteen, after his father was lost at sea. It was either that or starve.
It kind of makes you wonder about complaining about the price of gas.
@Jack (and everyone, I guess): *my* maternal grandfather, a Navy vet, also died here, some forty years after yours. I’ve always thought it was a striking building, but I can’t help wondering how many old sailors might haunt the premises. Any Amazon folk out there reading who can confirm or deny?
Why didn’t I know that Amazon was in that building? Where have I been?
My dad worked for the US Coast and Geodetic Survey (later renamed NOAA) on their research ships from the 1930s until 1973, spending most of the year in Alaska and Hawaii.
Our family went to the doctor (and the dentist too, I think) at the Marine Hospital during the 1960s and early 1970s. I still remember the smell of the hallways (not a bad hospital odor, but perhaps something they used to clean or wax the floors). The ornate art deco elevators and other details impressed me even as a kid.
My dad passed away there in 1986. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was still hanging around that building. If there are any sightings of a cribbage-playing sailor spirit who smokes like a chimney, that would be him.
It’s like homecoming week at the USPSH!
As a Marine Corps brat whose career-service Dad volunteered way too many tours in Vietnam to scramble up the promotion ladder (while we lived here in Seattle), I remember going here for doctor’s appointments all through the 60′s, 70′s and early 80′s. I think the last time was about 1984.
For some reason, the military’s idea of a kids’ avearge annual physical for school and sports always included a blood draw. And not just a pinprick on the finger – but a couple of full vials drawn from the inside elbow vein.
I had my worst and best “stick” ever in that building. The worst was horrible, I was tiny and the needle was huge, the gruff woman phlebotamist uncaring and irritated by the fact that I had the audacity to be a child, and it soured me to most needles to this day.
But a year later, a big African-American Sergeant, who easily could have played linebacker for the Bears of the ’80s, noticed I was having a little terror fit in the blood room, and set me on his lap and showed me all his instruments, calmed me down, and drew the gentlest, most skillful blood sample I’ve ever had. I remember the floor was black and white travertine tile set on the diagonal with a border of smaller tiles in this area, because that’s what he kept me focused on counting the tiles, while he tricked me into not noticing he was drawing my blood!
My father was chief of the otolaryngology clinic from 1954 to 1971 and we lived on the property. The housing and grounds were desigined originally for the chiefs of the various clinics and their families; I was born on First Hill and raised on the hospital grounds (quarters 8 then 6), we moved away in 1971 (all the way to Sequim). What great memories! I’d enjoy seeing a reunion of some sort for the children of the doctors and nurses from the hospital! These submissions are wonderful!
Yes, years later in talking with a friend from my junior high school years, he always thought the hospital and grounds were an “insane asylum”.
Howdy all-
I used to have an office in this building when I worked for Amazon and spent many late night hours here, pretty much alone on my floor. No ghosts ever visited me, and no one ever talked about having experiences themselves. Great building, though nothing was saved past the lobby- the interior floors are a huge disappointment style-wise.
I spent many mornings waiting in the lobby of the hospital while my father, Dr. Richard Briggs, did the rounds of his patients there. I like the hospital and hope it continues to be put to good use. All the best, John.
My Dad, Dr. Clinton B Sayler, was Cheif of Radiology in the early 60′s here.
I was a U.S. Public Health Service Dental Officer in this impressive building from July 1979 until January 1981. I was a specialty resident in Endodontics there while receiving graduate training at UW. I remember the vastness of the structure, all the marable and brass and the spectular view from the roof , to which I was treated by a colleague of mine,
I remember the beautiful grounds and the out buildings which had been converted into office space. The dental clinc on the first floor was very large and always busy providing services to very worthy beneficiaries. Unfortunately I was one of the last residents to leave in 1981 when all the hospitals in the system were being closed. It was a fine institution for learning and delivery of care. As I return some 30 years later it is heartwarming to view this impressive building from afar and hope it is maintained and put to good use.
I am an active duty USPHS Commissioned Officer stationed in Seattle. I have been enthralled with the history and architecture ot eh part of my Corps’ past and would be interested in finding out about opportuinites to get involved with preserving its history.
My paternal grandmother Marjorie Polhamius was chief personnel officer there in the early 70′s. I was all over that place.