Once it was a hospital, now it is a bar

I STUDIED AT University College London (‘UCL’) between 1970 and 1982. I was not there for so long because I kept failing examinations. Instead, I was a student there while I completed three different degree courses. Today (and during the years I attended UCL), the Students Union building is still located in a not particularly attractive building on the southwest corner of Gower Place and Gordon Street. Whereas it was a popular haunt of many of my fellow students, I hardly ever entered it except for a very brief period in the mid-1970s, when I was a PhD student in the Physiology Department.

During that short period, an Italian man opened a small restaurant on one of the floors of the Union building. His menu was limited to beautifully prepared beefsteaks that were accompanied by salad. This wonderful steak was priced no more than the often mediocre (or sometimes even poor) food that was available in the various subsidised student canteens in UCL. The reason for the Italian’s low priced, superb fare became obvious when after a few weeks, his eatery closed – or was closed. It turned out  (so I was led to believe) that he was using the Union’s premises, but not paying the rent that he owed.

Winding the clock forward to the 26th of June 2023, we walked past the Union building, and I noticed something that I had never seen before. The building has a commemorative plaque that reads:

“This building housed the London School of Tropical Medicine and the Hospital for Tropical Diseases. 1920-1939.”

The plaque was placed by the Seamen’s Hospital Society, based in Greenwich. I do not know when the memorial was affixed to the Union, but I feel sure that it was not there when I was a student. It is interesting that what was once a hospital has become a centre for hospitality.