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

[Update February 2021:  The 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