North Hollywood Medical Center

North Hollywood Medical Center was a hospital in the community of North Hollywood, California, demolished in mid 2011^[1]. It was located at 12629 Riverside Drive in North Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles. The hospital is famed as being the filming location of the television hospital comedy show Scrubs, seen originally on NBC and later on ABC, which has been nominated for both Emmy and Golden Globe awards.

It was originally a small private hospital, containing just 160 beds^[2] and an emergency room, and was called Valley Doctors Hospital. The hospital was sold to Hyatt Medical and opened as "Riverside Hospital" in 1973. In the 80s, the name was changed to "Medical Center of North Hollywood", due to negative publicity caused by people confusing this hospital with Riverside Community Hospital in the City of Riverside, where a male nurse on staff at that time had been convicted of killing several of the patients there. It closed in the summer of 1998. The hospital underwent expensive reconstruction in order to make it fit for filming.

Shortly after opening as "Riverside Hospital", the facility had been used for the filming of a TV movie called "Having Babies".

Filming location of Scrubs

The hospital was the filming location of the NBC/ABC sitcom Scrubs for the first eight seasons of the show, where it was called Sacred Heart Hospital. The pilot of the show was filmed elsewhere. Season 9 was set in a new medical school facility, for which a stage set at Culver Studios was used. In the show, Sacred Heart Hospital was said to have been torn down and re-built on the "Winston University" campus.

The building required reconstruction before it was possible for it to be used as the Scrubs location. The series' lead actor, Zach Braff, commented on DVD audio commentary that the hospital still received patients in the lobby asking for medical advice, after they believed the hospital was still running due to the ambulances parked as props outside. On another DVD commentary, Sarah Chalke recalled having a man and his wife show up looking for medical help. She remembered that the man's arm was bloody and there was nothing anybody could do except direct the couple to a real hospital.

Other roles in film and television

Other than being used in Scrubs, the hospital was featured repeatedly as the hospital in the 2001 film The One, starring Jet Li.^[3] The center was used to film an advertisement for Communities In Schools. It also served as the filming location of the hospital-drama Diagnosis X, which featured doctors acting out their most unusual cases. The hospital can been seen from the outside in the Britney Spears movie Crossroads; it was used to show the exterior of the hospital her friend Mimi ended up in after losing her baby.

The hospital has also been used in the following:

• The Sopranos, HBO drama
• Childrens Hospital, Adult Swim comedy^[4]
• Chuck, NBC comedy-drama
• Crossroads, Britney Spears drama
• Eli Stone, ABC comedy-drama
• The Forgotten, ABC drama
• The Office (US version), NBC sitcom
• The One, Jet Li action
• Parenthood, NBC comedy-drama
• Three Rivers, CBS drama
• Worst Week, CBS sitcom
• United States of Tara, Showtime comedy-drama

Notes and trivia

In season 6 of Scrubs, a fake coffee-shop was built on the outside of the hospital. This coffee shop can be seen in the background in Diagnosis X.

The hospital, while still open, suffered problems in December 1997, when a broken copper pipe sent a stream of water flowing into the basement of the building, forcing a temporary halt to surgical procedures and the closure of the emergency room.^[5]

On July 19, 2011, a fire was reported during the demolition of the building and quickly extinguished by the Los Angeles fire department. Welders removing part of the roof inadvertently dropped hot steel scraps down an elevator shaft, where debris caught fire. According to fire officials there were no injuries, and no monetary loss as the building was already under demolition^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} King, Anna. "Blaze at Old North Hollywood Medical Center" (video), North Hollywood-Tuluca Lake Patch. July 19, 2011. Accessed July 25, 2011.
2. ^ http://www.hospital-data.com/hospitals/NORTH-HOLLYWOOD-MEDICAL-CENTER-NORTH513.html Hospital Data
3. ^ IMDB.com Trivia for The One
4. ^ Sandra Kofler (2010-07-12). "Rob Corddry Spoofs Hospital Dramas With ‘Childrens Hospital’". Wall Street Journal. http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/07/12/rob-corddry-spoofs-hospital-dramas-with-childrens-hospital/. Retrieved August 10, 2010. 
5. ^ http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/north-hollywood-medical-center Article

Coordinates: 34°9′28.86″N 118°24′31.22″W / 34.1580167°N 118.4086722°W / 34.1580167; -118.4086722