Alteration

Construction on a new $4.5 million addition to the Mount Zion Hospital began in 1948 and concluded with a week-long open house for the public beginninng on Sunday, 11/05/1950. Milton Pflueger of San Francisco and Skidmore, Owings and Merrrill's new San Francisco office collaborated on its design.

An article in the Jewish News of Northern California described the new addition in detail: “The modern, six-story building, which has changed Mt. Zion’s face and address—it’s now 1600 Divisadero St.—will be formally introduced to the community at a week-long open house beginning Sunday, Nov. 5, and continuing through Sunday, Nov. 12, from noon to 6 p.m. each day. At that time San Franciscans will have a chance to see for themselves the new, completely equipped, and scientifically-planned addition to the 60-year-old hospital. The addition gives Mt. Zion 150 more beds, making a total of 325 for the entire institution. They are mostly double rooms, which can be converted into single rooms; and the color schemes, styles and materials used to furnish them were selected with Mrs. Frances Elkins, the decorator, as advisor—with the patients’ morale in mind. Thus the rooms with southern exposure are in a cool Celadon green; the few with northern exposures in golden rod yellow. The rooms have modern fixtures, mostly built-in, beds that can be raised or lowered without disturbing the patients, intercommunication systems to make life easier on both patients and nurses, air conditioning, oxygen piped into each room from a central supply in case of emergency, to obviate the need for moving heavy tanks about the halls; white birch doors, modern chairs. In the new building this includes: one whole floor of surgical suites, with three major and two minor operating rooms, two cytoscopy rooms, and a fracture room, an anesthesia induction room where patients are anaesthetised before going into surgery, and a recovery room where they are taken after—again for psychological purpose. X-ray department including three huge x-ray machines, each one costing more than $15,000, and a dark room which can develop x-rays in five minutes, or so fast they are ready for viewing by the time the doctor has stepped out of the x-ray room into the viewing room. Seven thousand square feet of research laboratory facilities, where the Harold Burn Cardiovascular Institute and work in other fields will continue to be done, including a completely equipped animal surgery and animal houses. Lecture hall for physicians where films and demonstrations are shown, and where TV broadcasts of operations will be viewed as soon as technique is perfected. A huge kitchen designed to prepare quickly and efficiently on an assembly line basis 600 meals three times a day; pharmacy, laundry, administrative offices, cafeteria, and service quarters. Elevators treated with ultra-violet irradiation to protect patients, with separate banks for patients and visitors. The new building, which has been incorporated architecturally into the old one, so that halls and departments are continuous, was conceived during World War II, when the board of directors endorsed plans for expansion brought to them by the medical staff. In 1945 the community responded to the idea with more than $3,000,000, to which another $1,500,000 was added later. Ground was broken in 1948 on the plans of architects Milton Pflueger and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The building has been planned to expand to handle 600 beds without drastic revision. Already in use is the first 25-bed unit, and others will be filled during the next months. The new building and its facilities—laundry, kitchen, laboratory, library, surgery, and equipment—will be used by the entire hospital and its out-patient clinic as well as by Maimonides Health Center for the Chronic Sick across the street.” (See Michela Robbins, "Mt. Zion Open House on New Addition," Jewish News of Northern California, vol. 102, no. 44, 11/03/1950, p. 1 and 3.)

PCAD id: 24994