As work on Memorial Medical Center’s expansion project kicks off, an estimated 1,800 inscribed commemorative bricks were removed on June 20 from the hospital’s Centennial Walkway.

The Centennial Walkway was established by the Memorial Medical Center Foundation in 1997 to commemorate the first 100 years of the nonprofit hospital’s history.

As the main pedestrian walkway to the medical center for more than 15 years, tens of thousands of people have walked along its path and seen the more than 1,800 names and major life events commemorated by the bricks.

“The Centennial Walkway has been popular not only with Memorial employees, but also the general public,” Elena Kezelis, executive director of the Memorial Medical Center Foundation, said. “We are very sensitive to the walkway’s place in the history of our collective community and worked alongside our construction crew to ensure the careful removal and keeping of the bricks.”

The commemorative bricks will be stored off site until the conclusion of the construction work in early 2016. The bricks are being removed now to ensure that none of them will be harmed by heavy construction equipment or any other related construction work during the expansion.

They will then be reinstalled in a new semi-circular walkway adjacent to the new driveway into the hospital.