Old St. Joseph Hospital

Old St. Joseph Hospital is a four-story Romanesque Revival structure built with concrete and brown brick at 715 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue NE, with a distinctive Y-shaped floor plan. The design allowed the medical spaces to radiate outward from central areas, creating an organized flow between patient care zones and surgical facilities.

Built between 1929 and 1930, the structure was designed by architect William Miles Brittelle Sr. during a period of expanding medical facilities across the nation. The Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati operated it from its opening, bringing their long tradition of healthcare to the region.

The hospital served as a gathering place where the community came for care, and the presence of the Sisters of Charity shaped how visitors experienced compassion within its walls. Over time, it became woven into people's memories of birth, recovery, and loss.

The location on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue NE is easy to reach and the building's layout allows you to understand how the different medical areas connected. The Y-shape means that walking through the corridors gives a clear sense of how patients and staff moved between departments.

A specialized penthouse room was built for storing x-ray film as a safety measure following the Cleveland Clinic fire in 1929, reflecting how hospitals quickly adapted their designs to prevent similar disasters. This detail reveals the building's connection to a larger story of medical safety that was unfolding across the country.