Children's Hospital Building | Longwood

FK4 said:
Not really. It's a big money-grubbing leviathan of an institution just like all the other academic monsters in town. Hey, theyre just playing the game the system creates, but play it aggressively they certainly are. Children's does a lot of good, no doubt. But sympathy here is like cutting Harvard a blank check because theyre in education.
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But this is what you believe, not what most people believe. There's a big difference. More children will be served because of this building, full stop. No matter how much you may quibble with the details, one can't refute this point. In the court of public opinion, that's what matters.

And when it comes to public opinion, Children's and Harvard University are in completely different leagues. Let me know when images of athletes and celebrities paying visits to Harvard faculty members makes the "this will warm you heart" portion of the nightly news...
 
Oh man how does this not get landmarked. JEEZ. If something like this cant thats a bad sign.
 
stick n move said:
Oh man how does this not get landmarked. JEEZ. If something like this cant thats a bad sign.
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I think the problem is Harvard Med School has a similar, but better, building a street or 2 over. So then they rationalize this one away by saying they still kept the better one and this was redundant.
 
^^and, because just like 254-268 Huntington Ave, it's severely interfearing with progress – with no real, viable solution that allows keeping it. The CH addition can't really be built elsewhere under the current political regime (even though this is technically untrue. In any case, we're not bulldozing Mission Hill and JP (yet, officially). However, Boston is transforming itself into a very serious player where compromises are going to continue to rise, and win over the radical nimby extremism of the past. So, if you come back in 15 years.....
 
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It's tough to find the right line between progress (whatever that means) and preserving anything 'Bostonian' (including the people who live there).
 
I can tell you as the father of a child that was treated at Boston Children's Hospital it is full of good people helping children, but the place itself is a scary hospital building full of long utility corridors and children's sickness and suffering. While it is a place for many everyday illnesses and injuries it is also a place where children come with very little hope.

Not a place I want to go back to if I have any other choice. The Prouty Garden was one of the very few places in that place that allowed a few minutes of peace and a few breaths of fresh air. It was necessary.

Without the Prouty Garden I would choose a different location to bring my child unless there was a special need to go there. Boston Children's Hospital has branch locations and other hospitals have fine pediatric departments.
 
tangent said:
I can tell you as the father of a child that was treated at Boston Children's Hospital it is full of good people helping children, but the place itself is a scary hospital building full of long utility corridors and children's sickness and suffering. While it is a place for many everyday illnesses and injuries it is also a place where children come with very little hope.

Not a place I want to go back to if I have any other choice. The Prouty Garden was one of the very few places in that place that allowed a few minutes of peace and a few breaths of fresh air. It was necessary.

Without the Prouty Garden I would choose a different location to bring my child unless there was a special need to go there. Boston Children's Hospital has branch locations and other hospitals have fine pediatric departments.
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"unless there was a special need to go there" is the operative part here. Boston Children's is the premier pediatric hospital in the world. The kids cared for in the new building--which will house a new NICU, cardiac care center, and operating rooms--will be referred to Children's from other hospitals all over the region, country, and world.

For "everyday illnesses and injuries" you are probably better off going to a satellite location or another lower-profile pediatrics department. They also provide great care. But for the super complicated cases, frequently kids' only hope is BCH.
 
JumboBuc said:
"unless there was a special need to go there" is the operative part here. Boston Children's is the premier pediatric hospital in the world. The kids cared for in the new building--which will house a new NICU, cardiac care center, and operating rooms--will be referred to Children's from other hospitals all over the region, country, and world.

For "everyday illnesses and injuries" you are probably better off going to a satellite location or another lower-profile pediatrics department. They also provide great care. But for the super complicated cases, frequently kids' only hope is BCH.
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In some specialties... but there are also other world class children's hospitals in the top 10 that will actually have some place on campus or in close proximity where parents or kids could actually go outside.

Texas, Seattle and Chicago are top ten children's hospitals and all appear to have easy access to nice outside spaces in close proximity or on campus:

http://health.usnews.com/health-new...ens-hospitals-2016-17-honor-roll-and-overview

How long can Boston Children's Hospital remain the top children's hospital when other places are nicer places?
 
There will be expanded outdoor space incorporated into the Children's campus.

The loss of the Prouty Garden will truly, legitimately be felt by patients, family, and staff at Children's. But when parents and doctors are deciding where to get the best treatment for their newborn with a congenital heart defect or grade-schooler with a rare genetic condition or teen with cancer, I bet that the prevalence of garden space will have little (if any) weight in their decision.
 
JumboBuc said:
There will be expanded outdoor space incorporated into the Children's campus.
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Try growing a tree on a roof deck.

JumboBuc said:
The loss of the Prouty Garden will truly, legitimately be felt by patients, family, and staff at Children's. But when parents and doctors are deciding where to get the best treatment for their newborn with a congenital heart defect or grade-schooler with a rare genetic condition or teen with cancer, I bet that the prevalence of garden space will have little (if any) weight in their decision.
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Still I expect Boston Children's hospital to be a top ten hospital for a long time to come, I don't think the loss of Prouty will cause an immediate decline in the quality of care, but one new building won't make up for the fact that most of the facility is still very old and you are seeing newer facilities being built around the world that will incorporate gardens for the children, parents and medical staff to find some respite.

At some point if you are a top doctor you have to decide where you want to work and until now Prouty was making up some ground for the fact that Boston Children's hospital has some very old buildings and a poor layout. Comparing facilities alone Boston Children's hospital has a lot more to do and trading one facility for the loss of Prouty is 2 steps forward and 1 step back.
 
All I can say is that the big hospitals are like corporations. Be skeptical when they crypoor (which they always do) and also when they "have to" build new additions. This is an entirely separate debate then whether or not the hospitals employee good intentioned people. The people making the decisions at the top themselves are also usually good people. It's just what happens with leviathan size corporate entities. And don't forget what the premier hospitals charge insurance companies. Yes, in many cases, the care is superior, but within the healthcare market, the big, Harvard run institutions are also seen as rapacious. The public may support a hospital as a shining, angelic institution, but there's a lot more to it than that. I think the loss of this garden and the loss of the building on Shattuck are unfortunate... and perhaps unnecessary.
 
FK4 said:
All I can say is that the big hospitals are like corporations. Be skeptical when they crypoor (which they always do) and also when they "have to" build new additions. This is an entirely separate debate then whether or not the hospitals employee good intentioned people. The people making the decisions at the top themselves are also usually good people. It's just what happens with leviathan size corporate entities. And don't forget what the premier hospitals charge insurance companies. Yes, in many cases, the care is superior, but within the healthcare market, the big, Harvard run institutions are also seen as rapacious. The public may support a hospital as a shining, angelic institution, but there's a lot more to it than that. I think the loss of this garden and the loss of the building on Shattuck are unfortunate... and perhaps unnecessary.
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It all seems so gratuitously destructive of the good (a good looking building and a very much necessary park) when there are so many run down ugly old buildings in that complex that they could have replaced or built over with something bigger, better and newer. I don't like to question motivations, but when a group of people choose to destroy good things in favor of keeping bad things I certainly question judgement.
 
FK4 said:
All I can say is that the big hospitals are like corporations. Be skeptical when they crypoor (which they always do) and also when they "have to" build new additions.
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I've never interpreted Children's as crying poor or saying that they "have to" build this addition. As far as I've seen, they've been pretty upfront about the fact that, while it's a shame to lose the existing facilities, more good will be done with this new building than without it. More children will receive better services, and more lives will be improved on the whole.

I get your skepticism, but I don't think there's anything wrong with their objectives or motivation here.

tangent said:
It all seems so gratuitously destructive of the good (a good looking building and a very much necessary park) when there are so many run down ugly old buildings in that complex that they could have replaced or built over with something bigger, better and newer. I don't like to question motivations, but when a group of people choose to destroy good things in favor of keeping bad things I certainly question judgement.
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But those "run down ugly old buildings" are actively providing clinical services. Tearing them down and replacing them would be far more disruptive (and expensive) than replacing the beautiful and significant but far less functional garden and historical building.

I'm usually all for preservation of things that can't be re-created, and I think it's a shame that these facilities are being lost. But given what they're making way for, and given the space constraints in the area, I'm begrudgingly supportive of this project.
 
JumboBuc said:
I've never interpreted Children's as crying poor or saying that they "have to" build this addition. As far as I've seen, they've been pretty upfront about the fact that, while it's a shame to lose the existing facilities, more good will be done with this new building than without it. More children will receive better services, and more lives will be improved on the whole.

I get your skepticism, but I don't think there's anything wrong with their objectives or motivation here.



But those "run down ugly old buildings" are actively providing clinical services. Tearing them down and replacing them would be far more disruptive (and expensive) than replacing the beautiful and significant but far less functional garden and historical building.

I'm usually all for preservation of things that can't be re-created, and I think it's a shame that these facilities are being lost. But given what they're making way for, and given the space constraints in the area, I'm begrudgingly supportive of this project.
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There's always fudging of numbers and plenty of material about which to be skeptical. And a lot of the motivation behind hospital construction these days is stuff just to stay competitive in the US News and World Report ratings. Don't assume that when hospital press releases claim they need certain areas for clinical space that that's necessarily true, and that other space couldn't be sacrificed. I may sometimes rant on this forum like a crackpot, but there are a lot of deeper systemic issues in the American hospital system that parallel similar problems in academia… Ever increasing costs, ever-increasing space for administrative people at the expense of amenities for the people actually doing the work of the institution, and way too much money being spent on the wrong things, things that are flashy and new but provide, in any utilitarian sense, no huge new benefits to the population being served.

In any event, the institution illegally violated an agreement to never alter that garden. Plain and simple. No amount of moral high ground will justify that.
 
FK4 said:
In any event, the institution illegally violated an agreement to never alter that garden. Plain and simple. No amount of moral high ground will justify that.
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True. And no decision they make from this point on will ever be taken at face value as a consequence. No matter how high-minded the rationale, they broke their promise.

If you remove from the city a valued park and historic building you had better replace these with equal value, or hopefully better. No amount of moral equivalence alone will suffice.

The renderings I've seen do not suggest they have accomplished this.
 
nm88 said:
True. And no decision they make from this point on will ever be taken at face value as a consequence. No matter how high-minded the rationale, they broke their promise.

If you remove from the city a valued park and historic building you had better replace these with equal value, or hopefully better. No amount of moral equivalence alone will suffice.

The renderings I've seen do not suggest they have accomplished this.
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This is what they chose to keep rather than Prouty Garden:

That is the bottom line for me. This "addition" destroyed something good to make way for something truly mediocre. They had a viable alternative that would have made more sense in the longer term and chose to keep a truly ugly space and destroy a beautiful space.

Just really poor decision making over at Boston Children's Hospital... maybe they are smart doctors but dumb as a brick as far as good sense architecture and facilities planning wise.

I have no doubt that once the garden is filled in they will go through additional cycles of facilities refreshes that will require taking down and replacing some of the older buildings. They should have just done that sooner.
 
tangent said:
This is what they chose to keep rather than Prouty Garden:

That is the bottom line for me. This "addition" destroyed something good to make way for something truly mediocre. They had a viable alternative that would have made more sense in the longer term and chose to keep a truly ugly space and destroy a beautiful space.

Just really poor decision making over at Boston Children's Hospital... maybe they are smart doctors but dumb as a brick as far as good sense architecture and facilities planning wise.

I have no doubt that once the garden is filled in they will go through additional cycles of facilities refreshes that will require taking down and replacing some of the older buildings. They should have just done that sooner.
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Also incredibly bad at community relations. It was easy to predict that removal of the garden would cause an outcry. Instead of going out to the community and at least trying to create conversation about it, the hospital just proceeded with the project and acted as though it was business as usual. They could have reduce the harm to their reputation and made the project a lot easier on their own community if they had just thought about it a bit more and done some outreach. Instead they acted all holier than thou.
 
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