The City of Dallas is saying goodbye to the previous Parkland Memorial Hospital, the place the place President John F. Kennedy succumbed to his accidents.
DALLAS — Hospital partitions that maintain tens of 1000’s of recollections, together with a pivotal second in United States historical past, will be torn down piece by piece.
The City of Dallas is saying goodbye to the previous Parkland Memorial Hospital, the place the place President John F. Kennedy succumbed to his accidents after being shot by Lee Harvey Oswald on Nov. 22, 1963.
The estimated 24-month demolition kicked off Monday, July 11.
On Sept. 25, 1954, the 7-story Parkland Memorial Hospital positioned at 5201 Harry Hines Boulevard first opened its doorways.
From that second, the hospital served the Dallas neighborhood for 61 years – till the final inpatient was wheeled throughout the Mike A. Myers Sky Bridge into the newly constructed Parkland hospital on Aug. 16, 2015, the hospital mentioned in a press launch.
Among the numerous life-safe measures and devastating losses, can be one of the vital stunning issues skilled contained in the hospital – the second when a child shares their first cries coming into into the world.
Grady Portis, now 60 years outdated, was born in Parkland and in an interview with the hospital, he shared how a lot the building meant to him as he additionally labored there for 22 years.
“It’s a little sad that the building is coming down,” Portis mentioned. “There’s so much history. I can remember my grandmother bringing me to the Emergency Department when I was just a kid and had gotten hurt. On my last birthday [in March], I went up to the Labor & Delivery area and thought ‘this is where my life began!’”
It’s additionally the place the place lives tragically ended, together with the heart-shattering lack of President John F. Kennedy. After being shot by Oswald, Kennedy was transported to “Trauma Room 1” at Parkland, the place he was pronounced lifeless. This perpetually engraved the positioning in a major second in historical past.
According to the hospital, a “Trauma Room 1” plaque was devoted to the hospital and was positioned in the precise spot of the Trauma Room, which is now positioned in the Radiology Department. A bust of Kennedy was additionally donated to the hospital in 2012.
Despite its place in historical past, the hospital was by no means designated as a historic web site.
“Every year, especially in November, we receive inquiries from people asking about Trauma Room 1, but it hasn’t been in existence for years,” Parkland’s Senior Vice President of Support Services John Raish mentioned in a news launch. “The entire room was purchased by the federal government decades ago and all of its contents are in a secure location near Kansas City, Missouri.”
In its shuttered state, hospital officers determined that the perfect determination was to demolish the building, due to its deterioration and the excessive value of ongoing electrical energy consumption.
“The building is only barely viable for administrative operations, but because of its age and the lack of availability of parts for many of the mechanical systems, it’s time to make room for a building that is projected to save the Dallas County taxpayers about $3.4 million in annual lease costs,” mentioned Raish.
The course of to demolish the building will take a number of steps, together with the removing of asbestos. It’s anticipated to be absolutely demolished in November 2023, hospital officers mentioned.
Officials mentioned following the demolition, the plan is to assemble an administration tower to home Parkland workers, who’re presently in quite a few leased areas all through Dallas.
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