Monday, November 16, 2020

The German Hospital in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, Cal.

[Update February 2021The hospital has been demolished]

The vacant former hospital on Soto Street near Fourth caught fire - again - the night of October 11th.  The fire crew took just over one hour to contain the outbreak, but it seemed routine because it was the fourth fire in the last two years.

I was alerted by email from my brother informing me that the old Lincoln Hospital was damaged.  It was where my brothers and I were born.

(Courtesy ONSCENE.TV)

Upon hearing about my personal connection to the fire, curiosity prompted photojournalist Gary Leonard to visit in the following days.  Gary sent me a photo of Eileen Marquez, a passerby appropriately wearing a white top emblazoned with the words "Baby Girl."  He humorously suggested that it was a nod to me - one of the many baby girls to have entered the world at Lincoln Hospital.

Eileen had told Gary that she attended Garfield High and was born at County Hospital.  She was delighted to be photographed because her best friend was born at this hospital.

Eileen Marquez
(Photo courtesy of Gary Leonard)

A Promising Future and a Promise Lost

In 1901 the Germans in Los Angeles celebrated the 30th anniversary of the German Empire, just as they had done in the city since 1871.  This particular gathering was dedicated to raising funds to construct a German hospital.  But their pocketbooks may not have been as full as their pride because it took an Irishman to help things along.

A fellow named Max Werner died of appendicitis in 1897 and in his will everything was left to his mother Louise back in Germany.  Terms stipulated upon her death the estate would go to a New York City charity.  Henry Workman Keller, son of pioneer merchant and rancher Mathew Keller, was Werner's executor.  The will was contested, and the New York charity received only a fraction of the estate in 1898.  When Louise died in 1903, the Los Angeles Herald reported that there were funds held in a bank earmarked for the German hospital. 

Community leaders led by physician Joseph Kurtz swiftly set up a corporation called Deutscher Hospital Verein, or German Hospital Association.   A year later, the groundbreaking was held in April, 1904.  The Herald reported a two-story [sic] brick hospital building would extend from 435 to 451 South Soto Street.  German national John Paul Krempel and Walter Erkes, an American, were the architects.  

A cornerstone dedication ceremony was held the following month, and by October the new hospital was open for business to accommodate 24 patients.

German Hospital cornerstone
(Photo courtesy of Gary Leonard)

Shown is the original building.  Building improvements were done in 1922, 1923, 1927, 1964 and 1985.  The 1927 expansion was the largest by adding over 19,000 square feet

Keller, a businessman and property investor, built a handsome two-story brick home in 1907 less than a mile away at Fourth and Boyle Streets.  The showcase house had 18 rooms of which five of them were bathrooms.

Noteworthy Patients

In 1915 Lillie Mulholland, age 47, expired at the hospital.  She was the wife of city engineer William Mulholland.

The Association made a decision to adopt a new name, Lincoln Hospital, in 1918.  

Another patient in 1920 was Emil Harris, the city's first Jewish police chief.  His name is well-associated with the history of the 1871 Chinese Massacre when he was an officer on duty as rioting broke out.  

The hospital architect Paul Krempel continued with an active career in his adopted city.  He resided on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.  Yet when he suffered a heart attack, he was transported clear across town to be treated at Lincoln Hospital where he expired in September, 1933.

It is unclear to me when the hospital changed from a non-profit to an investor-owned hospital.  The hospital's final years operated as Promise Hospital of East Los Angeles.  Since the closing, a 2017 plan to build a charter elementary school fizzled.
 
Photo courtesy of Gary Leonard

Photo courtesy of Gary Leonard

My brothers, my mother and I pose for Gary
   

Photo courtesy of Gary Leonard

Photo courtesy of Gary Leonard

Photo courtesy of Gary Leonard

Photo courtesy of Gary Leonard

Photo courtesy of Gary Leonard

Photo by blogger


Photo by blogger  

Photo by Gary Leonard

A view of the former Promise Hospital and its neighbor, Northgate Market.  Photo by blogger


Two fire department officials stopped by on the Sunday morning

The rear of the original hospital building.  Photo courtesy of Gary Leonard
  
 

Photo courtesy of Gary Leonard

Los Angeles Herald, October 3, 1904 
Courtesy of California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, UC Riverside, <http://cdnc.ucr.edu> 

Original brick from one of the building additions.  Photo by blogger

 
During the visit to the former hospital grounds, squatters were entering and leaving the building without regard to the fencing and red tagging.  Strewn on the pavement were personal articles belonging to adults and children.
 
Photo by Gary Leonard

 
 
Photo by Gary Leonard

 
Photo by Gary Leonard

Photo by blogger

Photo by blogger

Photo by blogger

Photo by Gary Leonard


Gary Leonard

23 comments:

  1. A very interesting article. So sad what the building has now become.

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  2. Very sad outcome to such a needed hospital! I delivered my beautiful daughter when it was a efficient and prideful hospital! Thanks for sharing!

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  3. Thanks everyone for sharing your sentiments and experiences. Sincerely, Betty

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  4. German Hospital Formerly Opened, Los Angeles Herald, October 2, 1904, page 10. (Copy link into your browser) http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19041003.2.140

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  5. My grandfather owned a gas station, garage, and liquor store on a corner on Floral Drive in East L.A. His house, a short walk about a block away, was my parent's address when I was born in this Hospital in 1945. At that time it was called Lincoln Hospital. My birth certificate only gives the name of the hospital (no address anywhere). After all these years, I finally went online to look it up and see what what it looked like and where it was.

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  6. Thank you Gabe, for your reply! It was touching for me to have stood in front of this historical structure - this now-razed building did not receive any acknowledgments by the City of Los Angeles. And now it is gone, gone gone. Sincerely, Betty

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  7. I was born there in 1947..my uncle lived on Breed street right behind back parking lot..thank you for this article

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  8. Thank you for commenting!! 1947 was a very good year! Sincerely, Betty

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  9. I was looking at my birth certificate and wanted to see the hospital I was born at. Shows Lincoln Hospital and the Soto address. Looks like there is an empty lot now. I can't turn back time but looking at the pictures brought me new memories. I was born in 1965 and my parents lived on Sabina St.

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    1. I too was born there May 10, 1963. We lived off of City Terrace. Was looking for my father Pablo

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  10. Thanks for your comment, Mr. Hernandez. Much appreciated. Sincerely, Betty

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  11. Interesting article, I'm glad I came across it. I was born in Lincoln Hospital in 1989 and still have a pink baby shirt with the Hospital name across the front over a stork. Sad to know it's gone and only continues in our memories. My Dad always asked me what bright star was born in that Hospital every time we drove by.
    Esmeralda S.

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  12. I was born in this hospital 31 years ago. Just today I found out that it no longer works as a hospital and seeing it in these circumstances fills me with sadness. I will keep my birth certificate issued by Lincoln Hospital as a relic. Thanks for the post and the information.

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  13. Was born in 1964 and lived a few blocks down till I was 8 and we moved out but Boyle heights has always been in my heart and so sad to see it today

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  14. I was born there in 1960. Must have been a great institution for the community

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  15. Wish I would've gone and collected a souvenir from the building. I was born there in 1976. So sad to know part of my life history is gone.

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  16. I went To Roosevelt High School and saw it very frequently, my dad had surgery at this hospital, very sad to see all those beautiful historic buildings in our beloved Boyle Heights destroyed, abandoned or demolished. Boyle Heights is not what it used to be, so sad to see dirty streets overrun by sidewalk vendors and swap meet like pop ups.

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    1. I was at the council meeting when the charter school parents pleated the council to revise the zoning to allow for the school to be built on the former hospital site and it was denied... instead it was left to the vandals to deface and set it on fire....

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  17. I was born in this hospital in 1958

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  18. SAD TO SEE MY BIRTHPLACE GO DOWN LIKE THIS. NOVEMBER 1971 LINCOLN HOSPITAL YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE A PLACE IN MY HEART

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  19. I was born at this hospital in November of 1987. So sad seeing it destroyed. Like a commenter said above, Boyle Heights isn’t the same. It looks like it got dirtier and lost its charm whenever I head back there. More homeless than ever it seems. Muy triste.

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