I think most people have heard the terrible news of the Northview Village Nursing Home closing unexpectedly, forcing the removal of residents and the laying off of employees. The front door is now sealed, a police camera wagon is installed, and of this writing, at least one man has been charged with burglary for breaking in to steal residents’ belongings, left behind in the hasty evacuation.
As longtime readers and St. Louis residents know, this is the former DePaul Hospital on North Kingshighway in the Kingsway West neighborhood, and I wrote about the building back in July of 2021. I mentioned back then that I knew I had photographed the hospital at some point in the past, and on a lark, I went looking and found those photos in the archives.
They were from May of 2011, well over a decade ago, and I’ve labeled those that came from that visit. Looking at the pictures I took a few days after the closure and the ones from 2011, I was shocked at just how bad of shape the buildings in the complex were back then, and how they continue to be today.
In particular, I was shocked how back in May of 2011, how many windows were busted out, hanging open or just looking bad on the upper stories of the nursing home, which occupied the main hospital building.
Some buildings, such as the chapel around back facing Wabada Avenue look to have been abandoned since 1977.
Back in 2011, the former convent was shrouded in thick overgrowth.
Apparently the triage plan for the surplus buildings was just to seal them off from the nursing home and let them rot.
The building below I believe was the convent for the Sisters of St. Mary who administered in the hospital. It has been boarded up as long as I can remember.
The convent was not secured, to say the least, back in 2011.
By the time I visited in December, the convent had been secured, finally.
This is getting serious; another nursing home, the largest, has closed in North St. Louis.
