Jack Bradley’s Legacy  A tale of Woe,  Waffling, and Wonder of Political Wheeling and Dealing

This is NOT work of fiction, no fairy tale , no act of Mother Nature, this was and is in my  considered opinion  having had to  digest the facts for the past 5 years  and before !!!!! absolutely needs an investigation

In the beginning there was a spa

TRUTH IS THE DAUGHTER OF TIME

A tale that started in the last century  lies forlorn lost and crying out for truth. Truth in politics , in this case  even truth is buried  like rubble in a basement .

And so it begins…. Jack Bradley’s Legacy as we reach the 4th Anniversary of Destruction!

A Tawdry Tale at best and a reminder of how this came to be. The series will be forthcoming on this page and finally on Oh Her Again, in its entirety. Are you sitting comfortably?

TRUTH IS THE DAUGHTER OF TIME

A tale that started in the last century lies forlorn lost and crying out for truth. Truth in politics , in this case even truth is buried like rubble in a basement .

The Beginning:
Lorain in Retrospect- JJ Meyers

“Central Lorain became the mecca for real estate operators, led by Mr. Hogan and Wm. A Braman of Elyria….they acquired the area upon which
“was erected a large three story frame building designed as a sanitarium, in which with the liberal internal and external application of certain water oozing from a nearby spring, a cure for numberless ailments was proclaimed by the promoters.

From Lizzie’s Guide to Lorain
Note: this was part of the Black River Historical Society who are now Lorain Historical Society and no longer have that link available …..

The house was called the “Devonian Baths” and was built in 1887 over sulpher springs discovered by accident by Gilbert Hogan, who had been drilling for natural gas. This is one of the early pictures of the hospital.

During the money stringency in the early nineties (1890’s) a far sighted individual in the person of Father Bihn rector of a Catholic Orphan Asylum at Tiffin. Father Joseph L. Bihn along with Sister M. Ludmilla Schmidt and Sister M. Antonia Adams founded St. Joseph Hospital in a Lorain house in 1892 for children who required immediate medical care and who could not make the long trip to Cleveland, where the nearest hospital was located.

The hospital grew , as did Lorain, and through it all people died, were made well , were born and money flowed just like the Devonshire Springs that remained buried underneath as the edifice grew.

https://www.tcghohio.org/history-of-st-joseph-hospital

In 1916 a new hospital was constructed to meet the growing population .In 1950 a larger, modern facility was constructed directly behind and attached to the older building Sadly, the original 1916 building was demolished in October 2015 due to among other things its unsafe condition. Since 1997 the hospital building was used for several different businesses, including a hospice center, nursing college, county & state offices and a VA center, but it would never serve the community as a hospital again.

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Those same old springs were still bubbling away ( NOBODY ever checked , as far as I can tell) in fact they were all but forgotten apart from the smell in basements located in the area and historians. ,as the old and new hospital stood proudly above them , gurgling and gushing presumably finding their way to the lake.

But “the witches brew of political speak” comes back to haunt all those decades later ( artist not found)

So who are the “players” in this century , how did Lorain’s pride in her hospital end up one of the biggest debacles locally. And we have had many debacles over the years

Springs and Water that move beneath our feet……

Yes, water below your feet is moving all the time, but not like rivers flowing below ground. It’s more like water in a sponge. Gravity and pressure move water downward and sideways underground through spaces between rocks. Eventually it emerges back to the land surface, into rivers, and into the oceans to keep the water cycle going. https://www.usgs.gov/…/groundwater-flow-and-water-cycle

There are as documented those Devonian Springs beneath our feet they flowed before this city was a city and continue!!!

My home sits on the banks of a ravine that held and still holds water that now covered up by the debris , that was this neighborhood after the 1924 Tornado . You can see its path on the old map of 4th Steet ( Duane St. I firmly believe, this house of a hundred years next year, will eventually slide into the lot next door where the ravine “was filled in” and the water continues to wear away the land. Note on the 1837 map the ravine that was ….

Hopefully we can agree that water finds its own level and as the rain water and anything on top seeps through we should be very careful as to what materials goes into ravines and water sources??? Agreed????

The Players of the Decades:

Fast forward  one hundred years to  1996. The hospital was no  longer viable, times had changed . The Federal Government decided they  would help  out  as they  didn’t want these old hospitals being  white elephants in the middle of urban communities.

So South  Shore  Community  Development  Corp  came into  being . One of the Stake holders was Attorney  Anthony  Giardini

South  Shore then worked  through  the years to  get tenants into  the facility  and a community  center

“South Shore took ownership of the St. Joseph facility in 1997 after St. Joseph Hospital merged with Lorain Community Hospital to create Community Health Partners. An $800,000 federal grant was used to get the building ready for its new tenants. Additional grants and loans were secured The state had $1.4 million in loans invested in the community center, while the county and the city each have $700,000 in loans tied to the center.

and so  the Community  Center  perked along  until the bottom started to  fall out financially…

To be continued …..