Please join me for a lively program about Dr. Theodore B. Sachs, who led a movement to establish the Chicago Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium. From the start of his medical career in the Maxwell Street area to his appointment as the founding director of the Sanitarium, which opened in 1915 and closed in 1974. We’ll explore […]
One hundred years ago, in March 1915, the city of Chicago opened its first public tuberculosis sanitarium on a 160-acre site bound by Bryn Mawr, Pulaski, Peterson and Central Park avenues. The 650-bed, 32-building facility was founded to provide treatment and long-term care at no cost to patients suffering from this highly infectious and sometimes fatal […]
Perfect day for walking in the footsteps of local history and discovering the beauty that was hidden behind the green fence surrounding the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium from 1915 to 1974.
Recognize this building? If you’ve been to the North Park Village Nature Center, this building faces the parking lot. It’s been modified for its current use as a residential building, but like many of the buildings on the site, it is still recognizable from this photograph in a 1915 book.
I, for one, have never in my life come across a perfectly healthy human being. — The Magic Mountain (1924), Thomas Mann Just when I think I’m done writing about the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, more compelling information comes my way. Here’s a patient’s account of her two years at the sanitarium. It tells of a bright moment […]
As mentioned earlier, I uncovered the history of Chicago’s Municipal TB Sanitarium but learned little about the purpose it served. Guest blogger Dr. Gilberto Gonzalez, a retired general surgeon, offered to fill in the blanks for me. Dr. Gonzalez trained at Mercy Hospital in Chicago for three years, the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium for one year (1961-62) and […]
More than the sight of my old house, this takes me back. The corner of Peterson and Central Park avenues, the unused service entrance to the sanitarium. That white square sign hanging on the left-hand side of the gate? Directions to the main entrance, I’m sure of it. A corner of the guard house, pictured in my first post […]
The Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium on Chicago’s far north side once was a place that frightened neighborhood children and once was a place of misery, as a physician wrote in a comment to my earlier post. Today, it’s a very accessible, much-treasured public resource serving many people and many purposes. Most of the original buildings were demolished, but […]
A seemingly endless stretch of wilderness faced the house I grew up in on Chicago’s far north side. Dense stands of old-growth trees stood guard around its perimeter. Looking west from our front door, all I could see beyond the green chain-link fence was grass, trees and a tall dark tower. As we know from […]
