VA BUILDING'S DEMISE SIGNALS END OF ERA : FACILITY TREATED SOLDIERS OF 5 WARS.

Byline: Daniel Taub Daily News Staff Writer

When Sepulveda Veterans Affairs Medical Center's Building 3 first opened, Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of the United States and the war in Korea had just come to an end.

Over the next four decades, Building 3 was used to treat not only the veterans of the two world wars and Korea, but also the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars.

But the 41-year-old, six-story building - the centerpiece of the medical complex on Plummer Street - was severely damaged in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and its demolition began last week.

With the need for in-patient care declining, the building will be replaced by an outpatient care center later this year - marking the end of an era.

For doctors, nurses and administrators who worked there, Building 3 was more than just a place where surgeries were performed and patients were cared for - it was a close-knit family.

``Building 3 was an exciting place to work,'' said Rena Manuel, a head nurse in the recovering patient unit for four years before the earthquake. ``It was such a family feeling in the building.''

Manuel, 58, said that workers in Building 3 - even ones who did not work directly together - were willing to come to one another's aid.

Whenever Manuel was short on supplies, the floor beneath hers was always willing to share, Manuel said. ``I dashed down the stairs and asked the head nurse. Oh sure, anything I needed, (she'd say).''

Before sunrise the morning of the earthquake, Manuel was too busy backing patients in wheelchairs down a flight of stairs from the fifth floor to worry about the fate of the building itself.

But during the relocation of patients and equipment to the building's front lawn, Manuel did notice that a foot-wide crack across a hallway on the fifth floor allowed her to see clear to the first floor of the building.

Holly Di Domenico, an administrator in charge of medical files who worked in the building for 23 years, said that she had an intimate connection with the building.

``I think I knew every hiding place in that building, and then some,'' Di Domenico, 51, said.

But the worst part of being out of Building 3 for Di Domenico is that her ``family'' was relocated to seven separate buildings on the 160-acre facility.

``We're spread out quite a bit now. My office is in Building 5, I have staff in Building 10, Building 2, Building 62, Building 4, Building 25, Building 5,'' Di Domenico said.

``It's a weird feeling because most of our conversation is through the computer system and through our e-mail system. And I don't like that too well,'' she said.

Both Di Domenico and Manuel, who is also keeping in touch with her separated staff through electronic mail, said they are looking forward to the opening later this year of the Ambulatory Care Center - a $47-million, three-story, out-patient facility which will replace Building 3.

Bricks left over from the demolition of Building 3 will be used to fill in its basement, and the area will be converted to a parking lot for the Ambulatory Care Center, to be known as Building 200, William Ball, a spokesman for the VA medical center, said.

But Ball noted that 1,000 bricks will be saved and used to build a memorial to Building 3.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1) Rena Manuel, left, and Holly Di Domenico worke d in Building 3, a Veterans Affairs facility damaged in the Northridge Earthquake.

(2) Services provided at Building 3 will now be taken over by a new facility in North Hills.

Evan Yee/Daily News