Getting Familiar with the Longwood Medical Area

It has been full 2 months since I blogged.  At first I was going to blame the Longwood Medical Area (LMA) tour that I had to give for Boston By Foot at the end of July.  But it has now been over a month since I have given the tour... So maybe the tour was only part of the story. 

I did spend a lot of time in June and especially July memorizing various facts about the Harvard Medical School and the many hospitals now located in the LMA.  There were also many "walk throughs" and a few practice tours... In the end, I think the tour went well, though I wish more people showed up. 

A couple of weeks ago I tracked back along the tour route and took photos of the things that I found particularly neat.  So here I present you a small peek into the wonders of the tour.


Gordon Hall at the top of the Harvard Medical School Quad

At the end of the 19th century Harvard Medical School was located near Copley Square.  The school started looking for a new location in order to have space to expand and to be near hospitals to train the budding doctors.  This need played an important role in establishing the Longwood Medical Area.


The Stoneman Building, originally the South Building, built in 1948
It is the 2nd building of the Beth Israel Hospital in the LMA

The Beth Israel Hospital was establish in Roxbury in 1916, but moved to the Longwood Medical Area in 1928.  While the hospital welcomed people of all religions and nationalities, it particularly catered to Jewish people, providing kosher meals and religious services.

If you noticed that the South Building in the photo above is built at an angle to other (later) buildings around it and more importantly at an angle to the street, it is because at the time it was really important that the operating rooms get northern light exposure.  The natural light requirements turned up in many places on the tour because when many of these buildings were originally built, the electric lighting was simply not sufficient for complicated medical procedures.

Yawkey Center, the newest clinical building of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute,
just opened in late January this year

Patients names written on steel beams exposed in the Yawkey Center

The Yawkey Center, Dana Farber's new clinical building, just opened in late January of this year.  Besides the expected numerous exam and consultation rooms, the center also has over 300 works of art on display for the patients and a two story healing garden.  The building has a green roof, landscaped with native plants.  During the Yawkey Center construction ironworkers wrote the names of patients on the steel beams.  Some of the names still remain visible in honor of the patients.


A plaque on the Libby Building of the Deaconess Hospital
that marks the spot where insulin was administered for the first time
in New England to a diabetes patient, Elizabeth Mudge

It was interesting to learn about the early treatment of diabetes.  Apparently before insulin became available in 1922, the only way to "treat" diabetes was essentially by starvation. 

And now it is time for one of my favorite parts of the tour--the original building of the Angell Memorial Hospital. 

An inscription inside the arch of the Angell Memorial Hospital original building

When the Angell Memorial Hospital first opened in 1915 on Longwood Avenue, it was the first large animal veterinary hospital in the United States.  As it was the age of the horse, people brought their ailing horses here.  The inscription asks that the horses be taken through the arch and into the courtyard. 

Rings for tethering horses to be examined
in the courtyard of the original Angell Memorial Hospital building

All around the courtyard there are still rings mounted into the walls, once used for tethering horses to be examined.  In 1976 Angell Memorial moved to a new much larger facility in Jamaica Plain, and this building today belongs to Harvard and is being used for office space.  Luckily these small remnants of the veterinary hospital still remain.