Heritage Inventory:  No.
Heritage Designation:  No.
Why Endangered:  Demolition proposed, development pressure.

For 117 years, Saint Mary’s Hospital, built by Mother Joseph of the Sisters of Providence, served New Westminster with compassion and grace.  Today, Mother Joseph is one of only 98 Americans honoured in the rotunda of the Capitol, considered a key builder of the Pacific Northwest – the nun and architect completed in her lifetime 2 orphanages, 5 Indian schools, 7 academies, and 11 hospitals, including Providence Orphanage and Saint Mary’s Hospital in New Westminster.  She has been referred to as the First Architect of the Pacific Northwest. 

But while the accomplishments of the Sisters of Providence, the woman builders of the West, and Mother Joseph herself have earned the highest honours and memory south of the border, here the legacy of care and compassion faces obliteration. In the wake of the closure of the hospital, a development proposal has been put forward which would wipe out the memory of Saint Mary’s hospital and the unique role it played on this site for 117 years, including the demolition of the hospital itself and adjoining heritage homes. 

The old monkey tree (Chilean pine) is planned to be kept – the memorial garden has been dismantled already.  Even Saint Mary’s street itself would be wiped out – a final ignominious end to an important heritage, if the development proceeds as planned.

Saint Mary’s Hospital was designed by architect Allen C. Smith, who also designed New Westminster’s existing city hall just down Royal Avenue.  Former owners of property assembled for the hospital site include such names as former provincial Premier Theodore Davie, and such other local historical figures as Henry Valentine Edmonds and Alfred Seymour Black.  The original hospital was completed in 1887, with funds raised through begging tours of the Sisters, and a limited insurance scheme.  A new hospital was built just north of the old in 1959.  In 1964, a major addition to the hospital was financed by the citizens of New Westminster, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and Fraser Mills, who approved bylaws to raise the money.  A former Chair of the Saint Mary’s Health Foundation has argued that morally, the hospital belongs to the community.  Former long-time administrator Sister Mary Michael also felt that, “St. Mary’s is a public hospital, not private.”  Will the developer and the city ensure that the existing Institutional Moderne building and the site’s history are respected?

The currently vacant hospital building features an aquamarine colour scheme.  A chapel includes sidewalls of oak, an altar wall of mahogany, and red cedar pews, and bas relief Italianate fixtures.  The hospital exterior features unique and highly detailed tile work, including fine tiling in the shape of a cross.  A recent assessment by the sub-committee on building and demolition permits of the Community Heritage Commission recognized several unique features:  thousands of turquoise rectangular facing blocks on lower floors; turquoise/blue panels on upper floors of unknown construction material, some possibly covered by glass panels; and eight inch by sixteen inch tiles forming exterior cladding. 

The detail and care of some of the tile work is extraordinary.  The Heritage Commission has been denied access to assess the interior of the building.  Locally, the building is most reminiscent of the BC Hydro building in Vancouver which used similar but less detailed exterior tiling for cladding, and which was preserved and is now used for housing.  Other features include some unique decorative work built into the façade creating crosses constructed using extensive numbers of one inch tiles and side exposures of the building which have been created with a zigzag decorative style. 

Potential Future Use:  Possible residential conversion of existing structure maintaining the excellent exterior façade.  The building has been described as a Modern heritage classic.

Saint Mary’s is included on this list both as a historic site of the city, and for the detailed craftsmanship elements of the Institutional Moderne building. The role played by other historic hospitals has been preserved when those hospitals closed their doors, in the sense of some continued service to the community coupled with honouring the hospital’s history. 

The City of San Francisco, faced with the development of its beloved old Saint Joseph’s Hospital, took steps with the developer to preserve the hospital building, incorporating respect for history and heritage into a modern development.  To learn more, see http://www.noehill.com/sf/landmarks/national09.asp and scroll down to St. Joseph’s Hospital.  In Texas, a former hospital was converted into an administrative building and offices for the health system, adding commercial vitality to an area.

  Former hospitals have been used for schools related to health care in Florida, student housing in Baltimore, an outreach campus in Ireland, a community college campus in California, and seniors housing in Enderby, right here in British Columbia.  In these cases, civic officials and the community sought to protect the historic role played by the former hospitals, by finding the existing buildings new uses that would continue to serve the community. Also endangered as part of the development proposal are three heritage homes, 208 Cunningham (named after James Cunningham, a head of the New Westminster Gas Works) and two heritage homes on Agnes Street.  The demolition of these properties along with Saint Mary’s Hospital would amount to an unprecedented heritage massacre.