Gala welcomes Silver Cross to New Lenox
By Tony Graf tgraf@stmedianetwork.com February 5, 2012 5:14PM
Senior vice president Ruth Colby (right) gives a tour during the Opening Gala at the new Silver Cross Hospital Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012, at 1900 Silver Cross Blvd. in New Lenox. | Matthew Grotto~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 7, 2012 9:50AM
NEW LENOX — Silver Cross Hospital celebrated its new location Saturday night with a gala of sky blue and lavender lights, the timbre of stringed instruments and a rich sense of history that will guide the hospital into the next chapter of its colorful book.
Silver Cross is opening its new hospital Feb. 26 at Route 6 and Interstate 355 in New Lenox. The Opening Gala — “Illumination: Lighting Up the Future of Healthcare” — drew thousands of visitors and put on quite a show, both inside and outside the building.
Paul Pawlak, president and chief executive officer of the hospital, spoke to the audience in the main lobby, which was elegantly lit in glowing blue and dusky violet. He began his address by quoting the architect and city planner who had grand visions for Chicago not long after Silver Cross was first built in Joliet.
“Daniel Burnham said, ‘Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.’ He could have been referring to this new community resource in which we stand tonight,” Pawlak said. “Clearly the vision to create this healing place was no little plan, and tonight we celebrate the successful completion of this vision.”
“Tonight we begin the next chapter in the Silver Cross story that will be written within these walls,” said James Roolf, chairman of the board of directors. “I am confident that story will continue to build on the legacy of our first 117 years of excellence in providing the very best health care to the residents of our region.”
The gala took its theme from the beautifully lit reception of the original Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet, way back in 1895.
The Joliet News provides a description of that event: “In the dazzling radiance of a thousand lights, the Silver Cross Hospital shone forth its welcome last evening to Joliet’s citizens. The leafy groves were ablaze with splendor and as the siren strains of the waltz were wafted through the evening air to the porticos of the splendid edifice the scene became entrancing.”
Silver Cross has stood at its site along Maple Road in Joliet for more than a century. In 2009, construction began on the $400 million replacement hospital in New Lenox. Now, Silver Cross is celebrating all month long as the formal opening date approaches for the new six-story facility.
Stylish event
On Saturday, the Opening Gala was a different milieu in every room; a whirlwind of vibrant hues and resonant tones; music including jazz, blues, classical and modern; dinner, drink and dessert; and visitors engaged in tours, having fun on dance floors, filling seemingly in every nook and cranny of the building’s common settings.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing to have a hospital open. It’s a beautiful building and a beautiful hospital,” said LaVerne Brown, a longtime community volunteer and philanthropist.
“As you walk in here, it’s so beautiful, you forget it’s a hospital,” said Dorothy Brown, LaVerne’s wife and a longtime Silver Cross volunteer and supporter.
The Browns donated $1 million in support of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago inpatient rehabilitation unit at the new Silver Cross. LaVerne was a patient at the current Joliet hospital and was so impressed with his care that he wanted to make sure it continued.
Outside, a large light show made a colorful canvas of the six-story face of the hospital. The video mapping display — similar to Cinderella’s castle at Disney World — created dazzling effects on a grand scale in the night.
The graphics display included images of fireworks, a stream of stars, a large fish swimming from window to window, a man crawling up the side of the building, the Silver Cross logo, a giant blue ribbon that made the building look like a wrapped gift and the illumination theme used throughout the event.
The covered driveway in front of the hospital was lit up in royal purple, welcoming visitors.
A string quartet played in the spacious, high-ceiling main lobby. A light display of large, floating, champagne-like bubbles — yellow and purple against a night sky background — filled the upper reaches of the lobby.
“Glow” was the theme of the emergency department display. The hallway leading into the display was lit up with turquoise columns of light, and tables of green-gold flower arrangements. The emergency department had a clean modern lighting arrangement, ice blue and soft purple.
Bartenders Todd Kemnitz and Jim Clifton were dressed in ER scrubs. Visitors were able to sit at dining tables in the soon-to-be trauma rooms, or have drinks at smaller tables in the emergency department bays.
The Illumination Ballroom was in Pavilion A, in a large conference room that can be divided into smaller classrooms. A band played, and visitors danced on a floor under swirling, bubbling pink and blue lights. Across the hall — in a smaller conference and classroom setting — visitors took it easy in the Silver Salon, decorated in red, crystal and silver, with high chrome illumination.
Pavilion A also hosted the Heart of Blues Bar, which included a mashed potato bar. Elsewhere in the gala, diners could taste chicken and succotash, salmon with roasted corn and roasted red pepper and vanilla bean cheesecake.
The high-ceiling cafeteria hosted the 1900 Jazz Club, with a three-piece jazz band and vocalist. At this bar, and many other locations in the hospital, large-screen TVs displayed pictures of people having fun at the night’s events.
Upcoming event
On Feb. 12, the new hospital site will host a Housewarming Party. The community is invited to tour the 289-bed facility.
Guests may take a 45-minute self-guided walking tour through the emergency department, imaging, the inpatient rehabilitation unit, private medical-surgical patient rooms, the Women and Infant Services Birthing Center, the intensive care unit and other facilities.
The party will be from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Feb. 12 at the hospital, 1900 Silver Cross Blvd.
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