What was once the poster child for urban blight has become a symbol of the re-birth of downtown Houston. Jefferson Davis Hospital sat empty for decades, attracting vagrants, vandals, and worse. It stately columns and broad form looked out onto a busy Pierce Elevated freeway as the world rushed past at 70 miles an hour. But eventually, the world would recognize this architectural gem and bring it back to life as the Elder Street Artists Lofts.

Jefferson Davis Hospital started out as an ordinary hospital on the outskirts of the city. It led an unremarkable existence except for the fact that thousands of people were buried on the site. These graves were dug from the 1840's to the 1890's and are the final resting places for Confederate soldiers, former slaves, and city officials. In front there are several low rock walls in squares that might mark grave plots, or were possibly once flower beds. For a time there were actually two Jefferson Davis Hospitals in Houston. The original which opened in 1924, and a second just a couple of miles away on Allen Parkway. The 1938 Jefferson Davis Hospital was demolished in 1999. When the second one opened, the original was used for storage from the 1960's until the 1980's. The last gasp of activity came during the shooting of the film Robocop 2, when the hospital was featured as the location where the ficticious drug "nuke" was made.

After that, the hospital fell into serious disrepair, violated in just about every way vandals could imagine. Some believe the building, and those buried on the grounds, would not rest. While not exactly reliable sources, some of the junkies and vagrants who occasionally called this place home say the saw unexplained shadowy figures in the front yard and in the hallways. Whether they're seeing the spirits of the thousands buried here or just each other through a drug-induced haze is unclear.

In 2004, a Minneapolis-based group called ArtSpace USA was given permission to turn the abandoned building into cheap living and working space for local artists. It's a concept the organization has worked rather successfully in a number of other cities. By 2005 the transformation was successful and the building began a new life.