Newspaper of the University of Southern California
Wednesday April 12,1995
Vol. CXXIV, No. 55
Tower to replace General Hospital
t
County Jo build facility by 2001; safety part of plan
By Richard Cordova
Staff Writer
A new 15-story tower is planned to take the place of the familiar County+USC General Hospital soon after the turn of the century, but there are currently no Ians to demolish the 63-year-old uilding.
The "replacement hospital," currently scheduled to open in 2001, will take over services now provided by four buildings in the County+USC Medical Center complex: General Hospital, Women's and Children's Hospital, and two outpatient clinics as well as other locations.
General Hospital , which was completed in 1932, "will no longer be used for patient care, but it won't be torn down," said Project Manager Fernando Vizcarra. The building will be adapted for another usc yet to be determined, he said.
Harvey D. Kern, the center's director of public affairs, said the building could be converted to laboratory and office space or student housing.
The new hospital was planned before the January 1994
Northridge earthquake, Vizcarra said.
All the buildings being replaced "have outdated or unsafe life-safety features," he said, and the physical plant has deteriorated.
The existing buildings could not continue to oe used for patient care without expensive retrofitting because they do not meet current safety codes, Kern said.
For example, General Hospital has "no fire detection alarms, no fire sprinklers, and no air conditioning in half the building," Kern said, installing these features in the four buildings to be replaced would be "cost-prohibitive," in the neighborhood of $200 million-$300 million, he said.
In addition, retrofitting would
ing
require taking the buildings at least partially out of service, and
many other hospitals in the area would not accept patients who require public assistance, Kern said.
The new, 2-million-square-foot hospital will be air-conditioned and will have fire detection alarms and sprinklers and greater security features, such as fewer entrances.
The current General Hospital's 33 entrances result in a 510 million annual cost for security.
Kern said the funding for the SI .2-billion project will come entirely from the county, with no money from USC. Medi-Cal will
(See Hospital, page 2)
Spectrum director also a saxophonist
Springer plans for good shows, student interest
By Anisa Abeytia
Staff Writer
Craig Springer has played saxophone everywhere from night clubs to Broadway.
For the third time in two years, Springer, who is also director of USC Spectrum, will be playing at GroundZero CoffceHouse as part of Tenor Madness.
"For a long time after I graduated from college all I did was play saxophone. It was a fascination for me as a form of personal expression, but I never look/cd at it as a livelihood," Springer said.
Although Springer has played at many venues, there are a few engagements he won't take.
"I've played everywhere except weddings and bar mitzvahs, just because they never interested me," he said.
Springer, who has been playing since he was 10, explained what first attracted him to the jazz scene.
"I'm from the Midwest, which is the boringcst part of the country," he said. 'Jazz and whatl knew about the people that play offered me the possibility that there was an interesting world out there."
Springer said jazz has made his life interesting because of what it represents.
'The Midwest is not tapped in to the whole jazz sensibilities that question assumptions and place a high priority on creativity," he said.
Having a broad musical and entertainment background led to Springer's being hired two years ago to run the new cultural program, Spectrum.
"i had just moved to L.A. and I saw the ad in the paper," Springer said. "I had done something similar at Northwestern and thought that starting a new program would be more interesting than running an established one.
This year is the first full year Spectrum has offered programming.
"We produce a performing art and lecture scries. Next year there will be 16 performing art events and eight distinguished lecturers," he said. "Really the idea is to provide educational entertainment for free that USC students have not had."
He has seen an increase in student attendance, but would like to see a greater increase next year. The program has been structured around students' usual schedules, Springer said. The programs run on weekdays from 7 to 9 p.m.
"I like to think of them as a study break," Springer said. "Usually when a student is (See Springer, page 2)
Steve Orloff, a senior majoring In business, ollies off the roof of Waite Phillips Hall on Tuesday.
Actor/activist George Takei talks about ‘Star Trek,’ other endeavors
By Christian Cooper
Staff Writer
George Takei prefaced a talk to students on Tuesday with a confession: "I am an alumnus of the other campus in Los Angeles," referring, of course, to UCLA.
Takei, best known as Mr. Sulu of the "Star Trek" television and movie scries, spoke on a wide range of issues, from his internment dur-
ing World War II to his candidacy for the Los Angeles City Council at a lecture at the Annenberg Auditorium on Tuesday. Afterward, he signed copies of his new autobiography, 'To the Stars."
Takei opened his talk with the story of how his family was forced into an internment camp in Arkansas when he was just four years old. They were forced to leave
everything behind. "We were not only stripped of property, but of dignity," Takei stated He said he was "too young to understand the experience," and never really learned about what the internment meant until later in his life.
Takci's mother was forced to renounce her American citizenship, and his family was nearly sent on a (See Takei, page 2)
Skating with a view
A fan shakes actor George Takei’s hand. He was signing copies of “To the Stars.”