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Artwork from former City Hospital is spared as demolition looms
March 27, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
By Courtney Gustafson
Special to the T&G
(c) Worcester Telegram and Gazette
Photo: T&G Staff/Tom Rettig
Worcester, MA -- Retired physician and former city Health Commissioner Dr.
Leonard Morse sometimes used to daydream during conferences at the former
Worcester City Hospital. And when he did, he would look at the relief
sculptures on the walls of the hospital's amphitheater.
“They were beautiful, inspiring images,” Dr. Morse said.
But the images — one of Dr. William Harvey, who first
described the circulatory system in the 17th century, and another of a double
serpent medical caduceus on top of an open textbook — were slated to be
demolished with the rest of the former hospital's Jacques Building within the
next month. The caduceus has been the symbol of the American medical profession
for a century.
A third image, of tuberculosis researcher Dr. Robert Koch,
has already been destroyed.
“I started to wonder what would happen to those images I used
to love looking at,” said Dr. Morse. “And then I realized that we had to save
them.”
Dr. Morse mentioned his desire to save the images to Noreen
Johnson Smith, vice president of development for Family Health Center.
The pair, who serve as board members for the Waltham Public
Health Museum, and who share an interest in local history, immediately began
looking for funding to preserve the artwork. Just one day later, the private
Hoche-Scofield Foundation, based in Providence, granted funding for the project.
“This was an emergency campaign,” Ms. Johnson Smith said.
“The whole building could have crumbled at any moment.”
Joshua Craine of Daedalus Inc., an art conservation company,
began work to preserve the pieces immediately.
“We had to mobilize rather quickly for this one,” Mr. Craine
said. “We knew the building was about to come down.”
Mr. Craine, who has also worked on the monument of Moses in
the new Worcester County Courthouse, and on the Rogers Kennedy Memorial in Elm
Park, said he was working inside what felt like the middle of a demolition site.
“There were bricks falling around me as I was trying to save
these pieces,” said Mr. Craine. “I'm glad we got here so quickly. I don't know
how much longer these guys would have held out.”
Mr. Craine explained that trying to extract the original
sculptures from the walls would likely destroy them. Instead, he will create a
silicon mold of the reliefs, which will then be used to create plaster casts.
With the casts, multiple replicas of the original pieces can be created.
Dr. Morse hopes to have reproductions of the sculptures
displayed in Worcester's Family Health Center, which rests on the site of the
former Worcester City Hospital.
“The Family Health Center is really the successor to
Worcester City Hospital, and these pieces will be a connection to the past for
the patients and staff who walk these halls,” Dr. Morse said. “Everyone who
passes through this building will know that these grounds once held Worcester's
first hospital.”
Ms. Johnson Smith said that the demolition company, Patriots
Environmental Corporation, has delayed further demolition so that the artwork
can be preserved. The company has also donated marble from the demolition site
to be turned into a fountain for the Family Health Center, and bricks from the
former hospital walls to be cleaned by local masonry students, fitted with
commemorative plaques, and sold to city residents.
“Saving fragments of Worcester City Hospital is so
important,” said Ms. Johnson Smith. “The legacy of the hospital belongs to
every family in the city. You can't meet anyone who doesn't have some
connection to the hospital.”
Dr. Morse is thrilled to see his efforts to save the artwork
fall into place.
“I consider this whole effort a triumph for medicine, for
history, for art, for the Family Health Center and for all of Worcester,” he
said.
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