Now This Made Me A Little Sad In A Nostalgic Way

A little while ago, the name of the hospital in which I was born came up in my daily business. Not having thought of the place in awhile, I decided to do a search on the Internet to see if it was still open. I just could not remember if it had closed down or not. First, I found a photo of it, it's a fairly current image judging by the cars pictured in it. So, as it turns out, the hospital building is still standing although the sign over the entranceway says it is something else today than it was when I was born, some sort of residential facility. As I looked the photo over more closely though, there up near the top of the building was the name of the hospital in concrete: Evangelical Deaconess Hospital. I had always thought my sister was born in another nearby hospital but now that I see the photo, this may have been her birthplace too. I remember my old man bringing me to the hospital and my mom holding my sister up by the window for me to see (no pest-like little kids were allowed inside - heavens forbid) and that is pretty much the picture of the hospital that has been in my mind all these years. Of course, the other one was red brick too, so who knows. Too late to ask either my mother or father or older brother. I'll have to check with my sister.

Evangelical Deaconess Hospital, it wasn't big or fancy but it
is where I was born and where they sewed up my head after
I was run over by a bicycle playing on MacDonough Street.

I then did a search for it in Wikipedia. There is a page that shows a list of all (or many) New York City hospitals. The sad thing was that yes indeed the hospital closed its doors but what was sadder still was what the hospital has become. The hospital is currently listed like this:

"Evangelical Deaconess Hospital, 623 Chauncey Street, Brooklyn. Now a homeless shelter."

Man if that don't suck. My first home on the planet, even if only for a few days, has been turned into a homeless shelter. Saint's preserve us since they ain't preserving our hospitals! I have to wonder, since I was raised Catholic, why Evangelical Deaconess Hospital was chosen for my birthplace. My mom was catholic too. Maybe my father was protestant but I think not, I seem to remember him at church when I was very young. I am guessing it was so because the hospital was only about 6 1/2 blocks from our apartment on MacDonough Street and thus probably was the closest one to home. 

The hospital and our apartment were both just about equally close to another address, one of some fame, 328 Chauncey Street. A very funny cast of characters lived there, at least in one of the greatest television shows ever. Yes, that address was the home of: Ralph & Alice Kramden and Ed & Trixi Norton of the Honeymooners. In reality, Jackie Gleason used to live close to there in his youth and also played pool in a pool-hall only blocks from our place; anyway that's what my dad told me when I was a youngster and he still lived at home with us.

My great-grandparents owned our building on MacDonough Street, they owned at least one other maybe two. When I was in either first or second grade they sold the buildings on MacDonough Street because the neighborhood rapidly was becoming a vile and violent shithole (it was a pretty poor working class neighborhood but was becoming a slum) and bought three others in Glendale. My family moved into one of them and my great-grandparents lived down the block from us. That was a blessing for us even though they were rail road flats, to get to one room you walked through one or more of the others, thus had little  to no privacy but that was the best we could afford. We were piss poor and thankfully I did not know it if only because after my father left my mom struggled to hide it from us kids.

Getting back to the hospital, it was a beginning as was our home on Macdonough Street. Our new home in Glendale was a step in the right direction but not much better; although, I spent the remainder of my childhood and my early adult years there, so no matter what - it was home.  

I guess I could go on with lots of nostalgic memories and even give my life history so, I had best quit now before I bore you all to tears.

All the best,

Glenn B