Opinion: Only in L.A.: ‘a Mexican American born in Chinatown at French Hospital’

To the editor: How sad that such a longstanding institution as Chinatown’s Pacific Alliance Medical Center, also known as French Hospital, has closed. (“After 157 years in Chinatown, Los Angeles’ oldest hospital shuts its doors,” Dec. 18)

I was born at French Hospital in the wee hours of a January morning in 1951. My father drove my mother in his 1932 Ford from Lincoln Heights, and he said that a few bumps he hit while racing there almost caused her to give birth to me.

I used to tell people that I’m a Mexican American born in Chinatown at French Hospital. Talk about ethnic diversity.

Seems another landmark has bitten the dust. I feel for those living in Chinatown and in Lincoln Heights, as they have lost a great hospital and a local institution.

Yolanda H. Lickson, Cypress

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To the editor: For years, I would drive past French Hospital on my way downtown to California Hospital on Hope Street, where my parents were on staff. It seems logical to convert the hospital, which is a small one, to an affordable housing complex or a shelter for homeless people, both of which the area badly needs.

Converting the shuttered hospital to such a facility would be far cheaper than buying land and building new units, as rooms and bathrooms are already in place.

Meg Quinn Coulter, Los Angeles

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