UAB Tears Down the Kracke Building

Well, it wasn't Tim Riley's bar, but the Kracke Building on the UAB campus at 1922 7th Avenue South across from the dental school had quite a history just the same. The structure opened in 1929 as the dormitory for nursing students at the Hillman Hospital next door and operated as such until 1963. In July 1965 the building reopened as the Roy R. Kracke Clinical Services Building, named in honor of Dr. Roy Kracke, the first Dean of the Medical College of Alabama. Various clinics and offices were located there over the years. I think Kracke was the third oldest building on campus, behind only Old and New Hillman. 

I worked in this building for a decade. In 1983 I was hired as librarian by the medical school's Anesthesiology Department. At that time the library and the department's administrative and many faculty offices were located on the fifth floor of Kracke. In 1993 those offices and the library were relocated to the ninth floor of Jefferson Tower, which opened in 1939 as Jefferson Hospital. There I remained until retirement in December 2015.

So what are UAB's plans for this space? The Lyons-Harrison Research Building next to both Kracke and Jefferson Tower will be transformed into the Altec Styslinger Genomic Medicine and Data Sciences Building. You can see renderings of that future structure here. 

You can read one of my blog posts about past demolitions at UAB here. 

More comments are below some of the photos. 

A contemporary photo of the Kracke Building with the Pittman Center for Advanced Medical Studies [CAMS] building in the foreground and Jefferson Tower in the background. CAMS has also been demolished; it was the original home of the medical history collection donated in 1958 by Lawrence Reynolds, M.D.  

Dr. James A. Pittman [1927-2014] was Dean of the Medical School from 1973 until 1992, a period of tremendous growth for UAB and its biomedical sector. I had some interesting conversations with him over the years about medical and UAB history. 

Photo by Hanno Van Der Bul 9 March 2021

Source: Birmingham Business Journal

Kracke Clinical Services Building in the 1960's 

Source: UAB Archives via UAB Reporter

Roy Kracke, M.D. in 1945

Kracke was appointed Dean of the Medical College of Alabama in that year, when classes began in September in Birmingham. Previously a two-year school had operated in Tuscaloosa since 1920, after many years in mobile after its founding 1859. The state expanded the curriculum so that students did not have to leave Alabama to finish their M.D. Birmingham was chosen as the new site for its large pool of patients. 

Source: BhamWiki

Nursing students in the dormitory

Source for photo above & below: UAB Archives via UAB Reporter

These photos show the interior of the Kracke Building when it opened in July 1965 and give floor-by-floor descriptions.

I arrived late to the party, so the Kracke Building was mostly a pile of rubble when I was there on November 1. Demolition began October 9. 

In this photo you can see the Lyons-Harrison Building logo on the lower left. This structure began as the Health Sciences Research Building with a phased opening in October 1959 and fully occupied in May 1960. In November 1966 it was renamed after Dr. Champ Lyons, Chair of the Department of Surgery from 1950 until 1965, and another prominent physician, Tinsley Harrison. Among his many other achievements, Harrison wrote the standard Principles of Internal Medicine, first published in 1950 and now in its 20th edition. 

The back of Jefferson Tower, originally Jefferson Hospital which opened in 1939, is visible in this photo.

Here we can see Jefferson Tower and on the right what is now the New Hillman Building, the front of which is seen below with the statue of William Davis, M.D., an important figure in Alabama and Birmingham medical history.