London, city of lost hospitals | Hacker News Reader

London, city of lost hospitals

wellcomecollection.org

63 pointsDanBC12 comments

Beautiful article!

I want to add that specially targeted patient population hospitals are not unique only to London, but actually pretty common before the 1900s.

In New York City, we had the German Hospital (Now Cornell), the Jewish Hospital (now Mount Sinai Hospital), the English hospital (Columbia), etc all with lineages that were originally tied to ethnic groups.

(I hope it goes without saying that these ethnic preferences are no longer applicable; all these world class hospitals are highly multinational.)

Can recommend the Wellcome Collection museum if you're in London. It's close to Euston station / the British Library / the British Museum, and as far as I know it has free entry (at least it was when I went there last time). They have an interesting collection of old medical instruments and Victorian medical ephemera.

Thanks for the tip. I've driven past that a number of times and meant to look it up but never got around to it.

Free entry and open late Thursdays, very easy to pop in after work if you work centrally!

This Londoner definitely agrees. Their special exhibitions are usually of a very high quality too, worth making the effort in my experience.

I walk by the (abandoned?) Samaritan Hospital for Women every day, it's such an interesting looking building compared to all around it and, in the midst of a heavily urban environment, almost looks completely wild, with flurries of green popping out of random spots on it.

Yes, but old buildings don't make for good hospitals, I'm afraid. They're hard to keep clean and in a sanitary state for operations and other medical procedures.

it's not weird that it's no longer a hospital, it's weird that it's no longer _anything_. The place looks like it was closed a decade or two ago and no one has even entered it since.

I found this that sort of explains the status of the building:

https://muradqureshi.com/samaritan-hospital-for-women-whats-...

Plus it's a pricey location, despite being on what is effectively a busy motorway.

Another example of a very premium location/building abandoned for as long as I can remember is the building on the left of Cambridge House on Piccadilly.

Some friends had a flat in what was the Jewish Home and Hospital for Incurables and while it was very nice inside, everything in the building was just a bit oversized and cold for residential use IMHO.

There's a great site with more details about many of these at https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/ .

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