Allegheny General Hospital – Pittsburgh PA

Description

“The construction of this hospital plant was begun in 1929 but work was discontinued in 1931 due to financial difficulties. It was resumed in 1935 with the aid of the P.W.A. and when completed covered most of a site of 4 1/2 acres and included a 20-story hospital building, a 9-story nurses’ home, and a power-house supplying the entire institution.

The hospital building contains 1,200 rooms of which 162 are for private patients, and it increases the total bed capacity of the institution by more than 50 percent. In the plan, all of the departments which are related in service permit unobstructed access from one to the other. Unrelated departments have free access to the general services of the building. The hospital is also equipped with an out-patient department, providing ambulatory medical care to indigent patients up to 150,000 a year. About 64 percent of the hospital services is given free.

The building is fireproof with a structural steel frame and reinforced concrete floor slabs. The exterior walls are brick and most of the roofs are covered with promenade tile. The project was completed in July 1936. The total cost, including P.W.A. participation, was approximately $8,500,000.”