Pieces of old general hospital for sale
This Friday, people will have the chance to take home a piece of St. Catharines history before it’s gone forever.
On Friday morning at Westview Christian Fellowship Church, bricks from the remains of the old St. Catharines General Hospital — currently being demolished — will be available for a donation.
“Mike Starnino (owner of Starnino Envrionmental Recovery, the firm knocking down the building) thought would be really cool to donate some money back to the community,” said Merritton Ward Coun. Lori Littleton.
“He said, ‘I’ve got all these brick, and people were born at this hospital, they have other ties to this hospital, maybe I would give away the bricks for a donation.’”
There is no set donation for the bricks, Littleton said. Half of the donated money will go to Westview Centre for Women at the church, and the other half is going to the Out of
the Cold program at Westminster United Church.
“These are the two churches right beside the property,” she said.
The hospital, which was opened at its Queenston Street locale in 1870 and closed in 2013 when the hospital on Fourth Avenue opened its doors, is being torn down by Starnino Environmental. Apartment buildings are expected to be built on the land once demolition and cleanup is completed.
The old hospital building has been smashed down in stages over several months, leaving the core of the structure standing as little more than exposed floors surrounded by piles of rubble. The facade of part of the hospital’s historic entrance remains standing amid a field of bricks and debris.
Littleton said the progress of the demolition has been slowed by the need to allow dust from the work to settle before continuing.
Securing the construction site has been difficult, with people cutting through the fence around the area several times. Some people have been taking materials from the site, including bricks, and for a time last fall homeless people had moved inbefore demolition had begun.
Bricks from the hospital can be purchased from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday in the parking lot of the Westview church on Oakdale Avenue, Littleton said.