LSU's Permanent Medical Center

Our motto

We're still living the "suite" life here at La Belle Esplanade.  The rest comes easy.  Read that last statement a couple of times.  Roll it around in your thalamus.  The rest comes easy.  Yo.

We have a new hospital in our neighborhood.  How many people can say that?  It's about twelve blocks behind our house on Canal Street.  The state tore down a whole working neighborhood to build it.  Some people call that progress.  Other people call it a crime.  Whatever you call it, it's eminent domain.

I thought this tune would make for a nice soundtrack for today's entry.  I haven't watched the video.  It's playing in another window as I type merrily along.

I'll check on the video periodically as we go.  If I espy anything I find objectionable, then I'll have to start all over again.  [Update:  I'm alright with it, obviously.]

So, we went to the new (Louisiana State) University Medical Center New Orleans.  That name is as much bureaucratic poetic as it is accurately descriptive, I suppose.  I'd call it something else.  At least the name is better than the LSU Interim Medical Center that the new UMCNO is replacing.  For better or for worse, the new one is permanent.  Your humble narrator, along with many, many other people more familiar with the matter, was content with the old Charity Hospital.  "I was born at Charity Hospital," sounds much better than, "I was born at UMCNO."  

Some people have taken to pronouncing UMCNO phonetically.  I'm tending in that direction since it's a pain in the neck to always say U-M-C-N-O, and really its just the LSU Medical Center, which is also long to say on a regular basis.  Everybody knows this is a big advertisement for the LSU Medical School.  Thanks for tearing down that neighborhood, LSU.  ;)  

The new UMCNO has a few design elements that pay homage to the old Charity Hospital building, but I'm not going to detail them here.  They are marginal in the larger scheme of the thing and I might want to use that material at a later date.  You have no idea how many archived photos I have on tap if I ever get lazy.

I'm just going to share some photos I took in the UMCNO lobby.  Maybe you're a medical tourist who's visiting our fair city to take advantage of the state-of-the-art healthcare offered in Louisiana.  More power to you.  I recommend India for that.  It's just as colorful in India, and the food is just as exotic, and it's cheaper, even after factoring in airfare.

Lobby of UMCNO

When you first walk into the UMCNO lobby, which goes up to the ceiling, and the ceiling is the roof, you see a sculpture composed of panels of glass hung parallel to the floor, and parallel to the ceiling, for that matter.  That's no mean feat in Louisiana; it's a sign of quality construction.

If you are familiar with a map of New Orleans, you'll soon realize that the various glass panels are sections of a map of, you guessed it, New Orleans.  I'm not going to say various neighborhoods are depicted in different colors, but I'm pretty sure that's the intent.  It's pretty.

Is it New Orleans?

There's a sweet spot next to the information desk where, if you stand right there, the whole map comes together and makes sense.  I know this because I read the artist's statement laminated onto the desk in the sweet spot.  One of the security guards noticed I was staring up at the ceiling for a long time and that I was taking pictures.  He pulled me aside.  "The sweet spot is right there," he pointed.

WOW!

View of New Orleans

I couldn't get it to work right.  It's like one of those Magic Eye posters.  I kept leaning this way and that with my head looking up while I was developing a crick in my neck trying to bring the artist's intent into focus.  Happily, the artist has left a written statement of what he or she intended and it's conveniently mounted in front of the sweet spot vantage point at which everything will converge and his or her genius will hit you like a ton of stained glass and metal framing if the wind is just right.

The photo above was the best I could manage.  People were waiting in line to stand in the sweet spot and they were getting impatient.  "C'mon, man!  Can't you see Hollygrove yet from where you're at?"  one man shouted impatiently.  "Do you see my house in the Irish Channel?" a little girl implored while I was gazing upwards trying to make the overlapping street grids align.  I finally stepped aside when a lady in a gurney said, "Hurry up!  I'm late for my appendectomy!"

Aah, the heck with it.  

I went back home and sat in our lobby and stared at this print we have hanging over the fireplace:

It's the orange house with blue shutters

And so, let us take our leave of Umkno for awhile and think of happier things.  If you want to learn the story of how UMCNO replaced Charity Hospital, there's been a documentary made about it called Big Charity.  Watch the trailer on the Big Charity Film website.  Frau Schmitt and I watched it at the Joy Theater.  There wasn't a dry eye in the house that night.  

If you've been staring at the above last illustration of the orange house with blue shutters for the past hour straining to see what the picture is that is hidden in that random dot autostereogram, here's the 2-dimensional version:

Surprise!!!

Keep staring at it.

We look forward to meeting you and to introducing you to this kaleidoscopic city we call home.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.