For the Sake of Progress ⎯ The Relocation of the Medical Center’s Dropoff and Turnaround

The featured image is an overhead view of the main entrance drop-off and turnaround locations for the existing Medical Center and Children’s Hospital. The image in the lower left is of the location as it was before it was relocated to the area as depicted in the night photo in the upper left.

On Saturday night, September 28, 2019, sometime around 9:00 PM, it all began on Prospect Ave. near the main entrance to the Medical Center. At first, there were two or three hardhats, another one, then there were four walking down the sidewalk, and more came from around a shed in the north yard. Some carried lunch pails, some carried a cup of coffee, and others carried the tools of their trade. All was quiet in the darkness around the entrance to the Medical Center. There were no vehicles: The last had departed a few minutes earlier. Back on Prospect Avenue, halfway down the street, plastic K-rails were being positioned to prevent traffic from entering the area. Suddenly, portable generators came to life, and lights began to illuminate the area casting weird shadows around some of the equipment. Some of the shadows danced around on the Schuman Pavilion Pedestrian Bridge above. As if compelled by an unseen director, some of the hardhats, having put down their lunch pails, dispersed in various directions only to disappear behind a shed or a piece of machinery and then reemerge under the lights with wheelbarrows full of equipment of kinds, A couple of forklifts rumbled and bounced down the drive. At the turnaround at the main entrance, a couple of tradesmen were carefully removing the vertical lights so that they could re-install them at the new location. And so the allnighter began, and the following photos will hopefully depict the action on the turnaround.

Saturday Night, September 28, 2019

The east elevation at sunset. In approximately two and a half hours there activity on both the north (right) and south (left) sides of the building.

A view of the Saturday night lights as viewed from the east tower. All of the action for the night, which you will see in the following images, will take place under the lights.

This image shows the site just after the floodlights were turned on.

This image shows the scope of work that must be completed by Monday morning. The current dropoff and turnaround area must be closed to traffic and the new dropoff and turnaround must be ready by 8:00 AM Monday morning October 1, 2019.

At the right of the main entrance, the decorative post-lights are being removed and will be relocated to the new dropoff turnaround area.

As the Schuman Pavilion Elevator Tower looms tall in the background, workers at the new turnaround are filling in low spots around the curbs in preparation for an asphalt patch the next morning. Note the posts in the center of the image. The vertical decorative lights removed at the main entrance will be placed on these posts.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Early Sunday morning, Victor, the job foreman, stands at the junction of Prospect Avenue, Medical Center Drive, and Taylor Court and surveys overnight accomplishment.

Monday Morning, September 30, 2019

By 6:30 AM on September 30, 2019, the new dropoff/turnaround was complete.

A closer view of the dropoff/turnaround. The valet station is in place as well as a canopy with chairs for those patients and visitors who are waiting for their rides.

Dennis E. Park, MA

After graduate school Dennis accepted a position at Loma Linda University. He worked there for 42 years in the areas of administration and financial management, also teaching accounting and management to dietetic students at the School of Public Health. Through the years Dennis has chronicled the growth of the campus, including the construction of the Drayson Center and the Centennial Complex and the razing of Gentry Gym. He is the author of "The Mound City Chronicles: A Pictorial History of Loma Linda University, A Health Sciences Institution 1905 - 2005." dEp 09.30.2016