I’m thrilled to announce the much delayed arrival of my new blog, Chicago Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium Remembered. The poor child is not quite standing on its own feet yet, but eventually I hope to report on the history, the built environment and the people who passed through this important public health facility.
The posts I originally wrote about the MTS on Me & My Shadow will stay here, because they are part of my Chicago experience. As more information about the MTS became available to me, and my interest in researching it grew, I felt that the subject was too large, too important, and too moving to play a side role in this blog. I’m hoping that giving the baby blog its own home will attract more readers with stories about the MTS.
So, when you have a chance, visit the new baby and let me know what you think.
I explored one of the dorm buildings a few years before things started falling to the condos. Somebody had taken the door locks out of almost all the doors and made neat piles down the hallways. There were still beds here and there and records galore. Tons of cabinets full of records inside the building and out. It seemed like when they closed the place it was a case of if it’s not on my list somebody else can deal with it. I regret not being smarter about what I found, my mother was born there and maybe I could have found something. Slim chance but one that would have been worth taking.
it was a whole different world on the other side of that fence!
John, glad to hear you’re on board. It should be an interesting story. There were also pheasant on the grounds. I was told that some people jumped over the fence to hunt the pheasant. I wish I had had the nerve to jump over the fence. I guess we were just too scared.
I can’t wait for your updates to your new blog! I still drive by there occasionally and think of what that place was when I was a kid. My memories of MTS are mostly that of a mildly rascally teen who liked climbing the fence there in the early 80’s and just exploring what was there with my pals. During that time the buildings were mostly boarded up and the area was overgrown with weeds and tall grass. it was also home to many raccoons, possums, skunks. hawks and even deer. One thing that stuck out to me was that the place seemed like a ghost town in the middle of the city. There were houses in there that looked much like the ones right on the other side of the fence on central pk. and the other larger buildings seemed liked something out of an episode of twilight zone. I also recall of huge tree that had trunk that was a wide as a car! I wonder if it is still there.
Will be checking for your future posts to “shadow’s baby”.