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: