Snapshot - Johns Hopkins Hospital


I snapped this photo while exiting the JHH metro stop a while back. The dome of the Johns Hopkins Hospital remains a fairly recognizable piece of the Baltimore skyline from many parts of the city. Once very prominent, sitting atop Washington Hill in East Baltimore, the rest of the hospital complex has slowly obscured most of it. Now, only the very top of the dome can be scene from afar. 

The original hospital was built in 1889 and opened in May of that year. It was designed by John Rudolph Niernsee and Edward Clarke Cabot in the Queen Anne style and features ornate chimneys that rise from the roof and steep peaks on the gables and dormer roofs. Of the original hospital only the main building and wings remain; the wards that lined Monument Street between Broadway and Wolfe Street are long gone. Replaced over time by newer and larger buildings. Today the original hospital serves as the administration building and offices, and is the major icon of the now sprawling campus which includes the hospital, schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health, Wilmer Eye Institute, Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the Kennedy Krieger Institute.

For anyone who visits the Johns Hopkins Hospital this is hard to miss, and reminds visitors that even in 1889 this hospital was ahead of its time. For the many employees that use the metro subway to get to the medical campus, it's the first image that greets them when coming out of the station. When thinking of Baltimore it's hard to not have the Hopkins dome come to mind.

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