Sudbury.com is launching a new history series today we’re calling Memory Lane. It’s the latest new feature made possible by our Community Leaders Program.
Memory Lane is a bit more interactive than our usual format. Allow us to explain how this will work.
At the beginning of every month, Sudbury.com will post an image from our extensive archive of photos from the Nickel City’s past. It could be a person, a building or an event. The image will be posted to Sudbury.com’s homepage and to Facebook and Twitter.
This is where you, our readers, come in. For two weeks, we will be asking you to share your stories, memories and impressions of the image being featured. Then, we will collect those stories, pick the best ones, and put together a story based on the stories you tell us.
We’re kicking off Memory Lane with the above photo of the Sudbury General Hospital of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The hospital on Paris Street opened its doors on Oct.15, 1950, with the first patients admitted on Nov. 1. The hospital closed its doors in March 2010 with the opening of the new one-site hospital, Health Sciences North (though it wasn’t called that when it opened).
Since then, it was purchased to be turned into condominiums, until the local condo market flatlined and ongoing renovations to the structure stopped.
In 2019, as part of the Up Here festival, LA-based muralist RISK transformed the exterior of the old building into Canada’s largest mural, a trippy, tie-dyed blending of paints and enormous butterflies. Sudbury.com produced a timelapse video showing the transformation.
For six decades, countless people were born at the General, passed away at the General, and worked at the General. Within its walls, people made new friendships, found love, found careers, got married, got divorced — the whole gamut of human experience occurred at the Sudbury General. And as always with an old building tied to the emotional lives of so many people, there are ghost stories about the General, too.
We want you to tell us your story (or stories!) about this venerable piece of Greater Sudbury’s past. Post your stories in the comments below or email them to [email protected]. If you do comment, be aware we may use your name and story in the followup piece.
C’mon, Greater Sudbury, let’s take a stroll down Memory Lane.
