‘70 for 70' history project: Blueprints for success

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Thursday, August 17, 2023

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‘70 for 70' history project: Blueprints for success

Mike Scott, mscott@stph.org

Note: This article is part of “70 for 70,” a weekly series of history posts counting down to St. Tammany Health System’s 70th anniversary on Dec. 1, 2024. Today we offer installment No. 2: A blueprint for success.

There are a lot of blueprints in the Building Services Department at St. Tammany Health System’s main Covington campus. Some are rolled up. Many hang on racks.

But one particularly tattered blueprint, pinned to a wall, stands out. It is the focus of this second installment of our “70 for 70” history project.

70 for 70, Installment No. 2: A blueprint for success

Today’s artifact: An original 1954 blueprint of St. Tammany Parish Hospital.

Why it’s significant: It’s among the last known sets of blueprints – if not the last – of the original St. Tammany Parish Hospital building, designed by the New Orleans firm of August Perez and Associates.

That, for the record, is the same firm behind parts of the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition in New Orleans, the Canal Place office tower, the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the Piazza d’Italia and the Shrine on Airline, among other prominent New Orleans structures.

Technically, it is a utilities diagram, showing the building’s phone wiring and whatnot, but it is mostly fascinating as a map of that original, one-story, 25,000-square-foot, 30-bed facility.

Designed in the shape of a cross with one “lazy” arm, that original building boasted four wings. (See Image 1, above.)

Let's zoom in and take a closer look at each of the four wings:

1. The wing closest to South Tyler Street housed the small lobby/waiting room and administrative offices 

2. Opposite it, to the building’s rear, was the surgical and obstetrics wing

3. The north wing housed the emergency room, the kitchen and other service areas.

4. Finally, the biggest wing, canted at an angle from the rest of the building, was the patient wing, where the bulk of patient care took place.

Today, the blueprint is all that exists of that original building, which was cleared bit by bit over the years to make way for various expansions. Among the last areas to go: the old lobby.

In its place is the light-filled atrium lobby the hospital boasts today, constructed as part of the health system’s $45 million New Millennium expansion project, announced in 1998 and completed in 2004.

Do you have a St. Tammany Parish Hospital story to share? We’d love to hear it! Email us at CommDept@stph.org.


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