This week on Urban Spelunking, we're heading to the South Side of Milwaukee to visit an active hub for seniors, with an interesting backstory as South View Hospital nurses' home.
"The O.A.S.I.S. Senior Center – O.A.S.I.S. is an acronym for Organization for Active Seniors in Society – is the current iteration of a seniors program that dates back to the late 1940s and has occupied its current home at 2414 W. Mitchell St., since the early 1960s," writes OnMilwaukee's Bobby Tanzilo in this week's article.
Photo credit: Milwaukee Recreation via OnMilwaukee.com.
O.A.S.I.S. provides an array of senior programming, including arts and crafts, exercise and wellness programs, access to technology via its computer lab, health screenings and meal services. Milwaukee Recreation, a division of MPS, runs the programming and the center, as well as other senior and community centers around Milwaukee.
But before its most recent chapter as O.A.S.I.S., the center was used as a dorm-style housing unit for nurses working at South View Hospital. The "isolation hospital" treated patients with highly contagious conditions as early as the 1920s, while attending nurses lived in the connected building.
Listen to this week's podcast for more about those early front line healthcare workers, and visit OnMilwaukee for more photos and history.
