Several of the older wings of Michael Garron Hospital, in Toronto, are soon to be demolished.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail
If memory serves, the dessert was either rice pudding or Jell-O. If there were additional choices in that cafeteria, it’s likely my mother, Louise, narrowed them down for her eight- or nine-year-old, who was vibrating with excitement to see his mom’s workplace. The other thing I remember vividly about that big hospital on Coxwell Avenue was the little tuck shop in the lobby. After our meal, mom would give me change and send me inside for gum. She’d reassure me that although the clerk was blind, he’d be able to feel the money to produce the correct change. And I was fascinated.
That was 1976 or 1977, and the fact that my oldest brother, Michael, was out of high school, working, and able to assume some of the responsibilities for raising me meant that my mother could partially fulfill her dream of being a nurse at what was then called Toronto East General Hospital as a ward aide.
When I got older and started thinking about architecture, Michael Garron Hospital at 825 Coxwell Ave. fascinated me in other ways. I was especially drawn to the quartet of thick, vertical bands over the entrance that stretched five storeys to the roof and the curved windows, which gave the building the look of a 1930s radiator, or, to be more kind, a jukebox, and the two massive wings that grew from each side, and how they were set at an angle to the street. To my untrained eye, that portion was much more interesting than the newer bits along Mortimer Avenue and Knight Street.
And now, much like my mother’s memory at the age of 93 is mostly gone, the wings of Michael Garron that I remember most vividly will also be erased – demolition begins this summer.
So, on a mild day a week before construction fencing was to be erected in front of the Coxwell façade, I met with Michael Garron president and CEO Melanie Kohn, Mikki Layton, chief nursing executive, and Denny Petkovski, chief of facility operations, who allowed me to say goodbye.
After pleasantries are exchanged in the lobby, I pointed to the trio of stained-glass windows above the door: on the left, a Canadian Army soldier; the middle, a Royal Canadian Navy serviceman; at right a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot in his flight suit. The text reads: 1939 / In Memory of Those Who Served in World War II / 1945.
“We get an inquiry weekly about it saying ‘please make sure you save it,‘” said Mr. Petkovski. “And we are.”
After examining the thick, sculpted terrazzo around the elevator doors, Ms. Layton trotted to the doors that open to one of the angled wings: “What’s really interesting to me is the floor tiles. … I didn’t appreciate them as a nurse, but now that I’m looking back, those are really nice.” Peachy-beige, emerald-green, and black-and-white, they are, but at 9-by-9 inches, they’re probably asbestos, which is not so nice.
Walking down the various corridors, not only do floor patterns and colours change, so do materials, as sometimes they are sturdy (and quite safe) chequerboards of poured-in-place terrazzo. On the second floor, as we peek into abandoned patient rooms – the only patients remaining on the day I visited were on the third floor – we find tiny adjoining washrooms in 1950s yellows and pinks; so tiny, in fact, we wonder how they were at all helpful to weak, post-op, or wheelchair-bound patients. The corridors, too, by today’s standards, are fairly narrow.
“That one big difference between here and the new build,” said Ms. Kohn, “is the hallways and the rooms do not meet the standards of IPAC (Infection Prevention and Control).”
And that’s the thing: as nostalgic as I can get about the spaces my mother patrolled a half-century ago, hospitals and heritage aren’t usually the best mix. And, when viewed from above using the City of Toronto’s online aerial maps (which start in 1947 and go to 1992), the Michael Garron complex looks like a giant game of architectural Tetris, with the first piece, D wing, opening in 1929 (facing Mortimer Avenue, by city architect Kenneth S. Gillies), and pieces from the 1940s, 50s and practically every decade after, all slotted together.
In fact, the building facing Coxwell, which I always viewed as one piece, isn’t at all: the middle portion with the vertical fins was called C wing, and it grew out of the 1944 F wing, which was further back from the sidewalk. It, too, was designed by Mr. Gillies in his trademark “progressive moderne” style – he co-designed the art deco Horse Palace at Exhibition Place along with the Symes Road Incinerator among other things – and it opened in 1952. In 1959, the A and B wings, those two, very long blocks that angle outward, were added quite seamlessly (officially known as the “Governor’s” and “J. Leslie Price” pavilions).
F wing, said retired MGH medical social worker and volunteer historian Wayne MacLean, played stand-for Sunnybrook. “The government, at the time, wanted to build a veteran’s hospital for the returning vets. … Sunnybrook wasn’t going to be completed for several years, so we were asked if we would be the veteran’s hospital until it opened [in 1948].”
“This was labour and delivery,” says Mr. Petkovski as we passed a complex of rooms, “and it happened a little differently than it does today … the actual delivery would take place there, mom would go here and recover, and babies would go here.” While repurposed some time ago, the room with the panoramic window that once displayed dozens of babies to proud parents – just like in old movies – was still there. As our little group walked past abandoned nurse’s stations, Ms. Layton remembered them as a “hub of activity, everybody working in here and getting reports,” and as we approached an old operating room Mr. Petkovski demonstrated the surgeon’s leg-controlled handwashing station with his calf.
Because these spaces were used up until recently, there was no peeling paint, no cobwebs, no super-antiqued equipment. But, even still, I could feel a heaviness in the air. So many hurt people helped, so many babies born. So many who died in these rooms. And all under the watchful, caring eyes of the hundreds of doctors, nurses, therapists, and technicians … and, yes, even the ward aides. It’s for all of them that I came to say goodbye.
The demolition of A, B and C wings (the ones I’m remembering here), along with the F wing, should be complete by the end of the year. The E wing has already been demolished. The view from Coxwell Avenue will be a large park, a long driveway and D wing.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the hospital's E and F wings will be demolished. The E wing has already been demolished, with F to follow. The main photo's caption has also been updated to clarify that only parts of the original hospital building will be demolished.