Floriculture Service Building / Emergency Hospital / Isolation Hospital / Art & Design / Theatre Guild Studio

The Floriculture Service Building was erected in 1908 for $14,000 and served that purpose until 1914, when it was remodeled to become the Isolation Hospital. [1] It was a one-story 27 by 103 foot stucco building. [2] As the Floriculture Service Building, the building housed a tropical garden that was a year-round attraction, [3] and an annual chrysanthemum show which was widely visited. [4] The facility was remodeled again in 1917 [5] to modernize and expand the hospital, but in 1925 [6] the functions of the hospital were taken over by the new McKinley University Hospital, which opened on February 13, 1926. [7] From 1928 until 1930 the building belonged to the Art Department and was known as the Art and Design building, and finally became the Theater Guild Studio in 1930. [8] By 1940 the building had been razed. [9]

During its tenure as the Isolation Hospital, the building was a state-of-the-art medical facility. Patients were housed in three independent wards on the first floor, each with 7 beds and a "nurse's room with bath, a diet kitchen, a linen closet, and a bath room". There were also three critical care observation rooms, one in each ward. The basement housed "a supply room, laboratory and a complete disinfecting suite, consisting of a formaldehyde room, a septic room, a sterilizing room, and a physician's wash room, locker room, and sterile room". [10]