Demolition unleashes a blast from Temple's past

Donning a hard hat, Temple University Health System president and chief executive Larry Kaiser watched Friday as demolition workers pried out the 84-year-old cornerstone box - a time capsule of sorts - from behind the cornerstone of the Old Medical School Building.

The handsome but obsolete edifice at Broad and Ontario Streets, dedicated in 1930, is cordoned off and vacant, and will soon be razed.

No one knew what was in the tin container, a bit bigger than a toolbox.

"This could be like Al Capone's vault," Kaiser quipped, referring to Geraldo Rivera's much-hyped, live-on-TV opening of one of the gangster's secret vaults. That one contained a pile of dirt.

Two things were obvious as Kaiser gingerly began removing the box's contents.

First, protective plastic bags did not exist in 1930. The papers - there was nothing but - were damp, discolored, deteriorating.

Second, in an era way before TV and the Internet, magazines and newspapers were vital. The historic cache included dozens of Temple Medical College Bulletins dating to 1908, a copy of the Temple University News, an issue of the Philadelphia Medical Journal, and four daily newspapers - the Evening Bulletin, the Philadelphia Record, the Evening Public Ledger, and The Inquirer.

Although the medical school building was christened on Oct. 15, 1930, the newspapers were from four months earlier. The big news, besides a win by the Phillies, was President Herbert Hoover's signing of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which historians say helped transform a bad recession into the global Great Depression.

In addition, there were tintypes of Temple medical faculty, an obstetrics department booklet, and what might be called a marketing brochure. It described the wonders of the then state-of-the-art medical school building, and was signed by the school's then-dean, William Parkinson, who devoted most of his distinguished career to his alma mater.

"The imposing building, under process of construction at Broad and Ontario Streets, directly opposite the Samaritan Hospital of Temple University, will be the General Headquarters of the campaign against disease being waged by the Temple University Medical Center," the brochure declared. (The 20-bed Samaritan Hospital was renamed Temple University Hospital soon after the brochure came out.)

The seven-story medical school building, designed by famed theater architect William H. Lee, cost $1.25 million - a lot in 1930.

Kaiser said it would likely be replaced by a research facility, but there are no definite plans. In 2009, Temple dedicated its "beacon on North Broad Street," the 11-story, $160 million Medical Education and Research Building.

As for the cornerstone box documents, Kaiser said, "We'll put it all in the archives."

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