[2][3] Michael Reese was a real estate developer who died August 1, 1878,[4][5] leaving funds in his will to build a new hospital.

As early as the 1940s, the area surrounding Michael Reese Hospital was already in economic and physical decline.

From 1954 to 1986, Reese purchased adjacent properties, (such as the Conrad Seipp Brewery on 27th Street, which had failed and closed in 1933 as a result of Prohibition).

Reese demolished existing structures on those properties, and constructed additional clinics and pavilions on the growing campus.

The new buildings housed many specialty clinics, including a tumor center, a Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Institute, a city public health clinic, a nurse's residence and school building, a heart surgery center, the Siegel Institute for Communicative Disorders, and the Simon Wexler outpatient psychiatric facility.

Many young women came to Michael Reese directly after finishing high school; some had ambitions to go beyond their clinical nursing training to attend college afterward.

Before its closure, Michael Reese's nursing school provided both a diploma and an associate degree to its graduates.

In the face of escalating financial challenges, the hospital abandoned their effort to return to profitability.

On June 5, 2008, WLS-TV reported that the hospital filed with the State of Illinois a letter of intent to close by the end of 2008.

A series of newer buildings were completed after a 1946 plan created by Walter Gropius, the first director of the Bauhaus in Germany.

These buildings, built from 1946 to 1959, were designed by Chicago firms based in part on the Gropius plan.

Construction and demolition work was complicated in August 2009 by the discovery of radioactive contamination of soil on the site.

Under the new plan, the city would borrow $85 million to buy the Michael Reese Hospital campus from its then owner, Medline Industries.

After Rio de Janeiro was selected, the Olympic Village plan was discontinued in favor of large scale residential development.

On June 2, 2017, it was revealed that plans to redevelop the former property of the Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago are currently underway.

[27][28] In July 2021, the Chicago City Council approved a $3.8 billion redevelopment project for the former site of Michael Reese Hospital, designed by architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM).

[29] The second phase, estimated at $3 billion, is set to begin in 2025 and will complete the development with a mix of office, retail, and residential buildings.

[29] The Bronzeville Lakefront project is part of a larger trend of megadevelopments in Chicago aimed at reshaping the city and revitalizing neighborhoods.

[32] Nursing school transcripts and records are available from the Registrar at the University of Illinois at Chicago for the last few decades of the program's existence.