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Historic Prentice Hospital Still Stands Despite Demolition Plans

Threatened with demolition last year, Prentice Women’s Hospital in the Gold Coast neighborhood is still standing and preservationists have stepped up their campaign to keep it that way.

Northwestern University has plans to tear down the building designed by renowned Chicago architect Bertrand Goldbergand construct a new research center on the site.

Old Prentice Women's Hospital. By Jim Kuhn

A coalition of preservation organizations, including Landmarks Illinois, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Preservation Chicago, has launched an ad campaign on the CTA blue and brown line trains directing passengers to sign petitions on social media sites.

“It’s an amazing architectural and engineering feat,” said Jonathan Fine, executive director of Preservation Chicago. “There is no other building in the world that looks like it.”

“We are continuing to hammer home the message that this building is too important of a structure architecturally, historically, and from an engineering standpoint to just sit idly by and watch it be wrecked,” said Fine.

Goldberg’s design is flexible enough to