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Emergency documentation

East Broad and College Streets
West Hospital and the vanishing Nursing Education Building

The demolition has begun! One of the other local picture-taking people posted a shot of the Nursing Education Building with huge holes in it. I'd hoped that some alternative would be found, but it seems not. There's nothing like the sight of a charming Italianate building (it really doesn't look art deco at all) with chunks ripped out to galvanize my lazy butt to get out in the midsummer heat and take some pictures. I had taken several pictures back in February, 2005, but none of the sandstone block over the entryway, which is what's missing from the shot I saw online. Also gone: tiling from the façade, including all of the six pointed star medallions, half the Corinthian capitals from the engaged columns, the cornerstone, the strip of garden across the front, and one of the Ambulance Entrance lamp stones.

We went out this morning when it was only 89 °F and again this evening, once it cooled down to 92 °F. I'm still sorting through the pictures, but I think I have some fairly good shots of the building in its setting and of the details. I wish I'd known that the demolition was going ahead. If I had, I'd have got some shots before they started knocking holes in it. As it is, I figured we had to get out today because all the tiling might be gone tomorrow. They haven't started with West Hospital, the building to the left of the Nursing Education Building, and its other neighbors just yet. I still have time to get backhoe-free pictures of them.