51 Comments Posted by CataclysmicStar

There is obviously ornate brickwork behind the inlaid plasterboard (I assume; might be drywall or sheetrock) wall. A shame that it was covered up, though with good reason - drywall would break if a patient bashed their head on it, while brick wouldn't give as willingly. ;)

I can imagine, however vaguely, how this elevator looked originally. The rust indicates that a great deal of it was steel or some other metal, and thus it was likely very shiny - maybe painted, but there really isn't any indication that there was paint here, so ... I bet it was so shiny! Maybe irritatingly so. :D

I hear that sitz baths are awesome, but in all honesty, after giving birth I didn't use one. They gave us little disposable plastic squeezebottles that had tops like waterbottles do. And I'll tell ya, when bending down to clean certain areas is a painful effort, or when toilet paper is too rough for certain still-swollen parts, a sitz bath of lukewarm water can be a lifesaver. I know it sounds disgusting to those who haven't experienced labor - or had a c-section - but trust me when I say it's a godsend. Especially when you're not only fighting strained muscles in odd places, but also nine stitches in very sensitive areas. :D :D :D

We had similar single or two-person sinks in one of the four grade schools I attended. There was a small pedal at the front that could be pressed by one foot, but the spouts rarely worked well and the pedals quickly broke after daily assault by middle school girls. XD

My fear of heights would have kept me from working there - and would probably have made me insane as an inmate.

Amazing that even from this distance, you can see the intricate details put in to make the building that little bit more interesting to the passerby. There looks to be a circular window up top, and I wonder now what special room (or hallway) that window was a part of. Too bad I'll never get to know.

Odd, I wonder what the deal is with the counter - and what's up with the three-paned glassless doors? Maybe this was once some kind of upper-level bar or cafe.

Yikes, that light fixture - sorry, soap dispenser - looks like someone just dropped a wicker basket on top of a light bulb and called it "creative".

I wonder what the purpose of the standing metal dividers were. Were they just decorative, or were they once curtained?

Beautiful!

I'm sure that the original doors were beautiful; those stupid, lightweight, cheap doors don't do a room like that justice. I can imagine the looks on the faces of young newlyweds when they come upstairs to the expensive honeymoon suites. They must have felt like they were staying in a mansion.

A pity that, like most of the gorgeous woodwork and stonework around the country/world, this too has more than likely been lost to the ages.. Beautiful hand-done work, painstakingly created, completely destroyed in the blink of an eye.

Haha, someone mentioned stitches.. Up until I had my son a year ago, I had never had stitches (and I still have not broken any bones or twisted any joints). While giving birth, however, I suffered a third-degree tear downwards that required immediate stitches. Despite my epidural (gah), I still required localized pain medication, although at first they were unaware of such and began stitching me up. A painful situation, believe me. Worse when your husband is standing across from you, staring, going, "I never want that again!"

Having given birth myself, the idea of these once-important parts of my/my child's anatomy being slopped into buckets and carted off is .. Odd. There are certain things you just don't think about when you go through something that natural and typical. Which leads me to wonder the eventual fate of all of the stuff that was lost during birth.. Blood, placenta, etc. ..

There is a drive-thru (I think) still across the river, over in West Quincy in Missouri. I know that it had been closed for some time when the Great Flood of '93 ruined a good portion of the low-lying land over on that side of the river, and I believe now that if the screen is still there, it is being used as a billboard advertising the idea that apparently, "Jesus Lives!"

I look at that chair, and then think about how I'm sitting in my uncomfortable second-hand chair, slumped forward and tilted in funny directions. I think sitting in THAT chair would probably hurt for all the right reasons! :P