CUMBERLAND — A two-word sign on the door of the former emergency room at Memorial Hospital says it all.

“Hospital closed.”

A similar situation exists on Cumberland’s West Side where the hospital at the Western Maryland Health System Braddock campus, still called Sacred Heart by many, is shuttered.

The hospitals are dead. Long live the hospitals.

Their demise, of course, resulted in the birth of the Western Maryland Regional Medical Center on Willowbrook Road, shifting the activity associated with such facilities from two neighborhoods to one.

In some ways a lot has changed in the neighborhoods of the old hospitals. In other ways, not much has changed at all.

“I don’t really notice much difference,” said Charles Boone who, with a residence at 606 Ridgewood Ave., was at ground zero for emergency operations at Memorial Hospital.

Directly across from his house was the emergency room entrance. Above him, although not quite directly above him, was the helipad where Maryland State Police Trooper 5 would land with trauma patients.

“I think the ambulances would turn their sirens off before they turned onto Ridgewood,” said Boone, who has been at that location for two years. “And the helicopter, you could hear it, but after a while you didn’t pay much attention to it.”

Boone said the noise from the chopper blades never got to the point where it would interrupt a conversation in his domicile.

Health system officials said there have been five medevac transports to the new hospital since it opened Nov. 21, about average for this time of year.

“This is a great neighborhood,” Boone said of Ridgewood Avenue. “The hospital was a real good neighbor. The place was always kept very clean.”

Boone, who has a driveway, said parking was never a problem for him.

The Memorial campus was more tightly woven into a neighborhood than Braddock, which was built before many of the homes that now exist nearby on thoroughfares such as Bishop Walsh Road.

The difference in traffic at and near Memorial can only be described anecdotally, whereas on Seton Drive and Braddock Road there are numbers.

The average number of vehicles using Braddock Road (state Route 49) on a weekday in 2008 was 7,161, according to the State Highway Administration Web site. A bunch of those drivers must have turned onto Seton Drive.

John DeVault, an engineer with the city of Cumberland, said the most recent traffic counts on Seton Drive between Bishop Walsh Road and the Braddock campus show that 4,600 trucks, buses, cars and vans were making that trip daily.

That count would not include vehicles turning off Seton Drive and heading to Bishop Walsh School.

Harry and Shirley King, longtime residents of Bishop Walsh Road, said they have noticed a lot of changes since the closing of Braddock.

“The most noticeable thing is the traffic,” Shirley said.

Harry agreed. “At 3 p.m., when the hospital shift changed and Bishop Walsh (school) was letting out, it was almost impossible to turn left from Bishop Walsh Road onto Seton Drive,” he said. “We would routinely turn right, drive past the hospital and turn around in the area of Lions Manor so we could come back down Seton Drive and reach Braddock Road.”

SHA counts show that an average of 321 vehicles used Seton Drive between 3 and 4 p.m. on a weekday.

On the other hand, the neighborhood has become much more quiet, according to Shirley. Gone are the clanging of Dumpsters being unloaded and the whirring associated with the hospital’s incinerators.

The quiet, though, has caused another concern, that being security.

The Kings said they believe the constant human presence associated with the hospital made their neighborhood less of a target for crime.

“We have gotten a security system, and that makes seven or eight homes here that have recently gone to that kind of protection,” Harry said.

Shirley said Bishop Walsh Road and Seton Drive seem to be getting snow plowed from them a day later than in past years.

“We usually get plowed the day after the storm now instead of the day of the storm,” she said.

Brooke Cassell, streets supervisor for the city, said, though, that not much has changed in the way of plowing.

“Seton Drive, Braddock Road, Louisiana Avenue and South Street, streets like that, are still priority streets that get plowed first,” she said.

One thing that hasn’t changed, at least not yet, are the bus runs of Allegany County Transit.

“We still run out Seton Drive because of the doctors’ offices that remain there,” said director Jim Stafford. “We decided we would not make changes without seeing if they were needed.”

Stafford said buses still access Ridgewood Avenue because some doctors remain in the Memorial Medical Building.

“One thing that is new, of course, is that we now run 13 times a day to the new hospital.”

WMHS spokeswoman Kathy Rogers said the power plant continues to be operated at the Braddock campus and security is in place there around the clock.

“The last of our operations to leave that campus were occupational health, home care and hospice care, all of which moved in January to the old Ames Building on Industrial Boulevard,” she said.

“There are no new developments in finding a buyer for the Braddock campus. We will be maintaining the Braddock campus until an alternate use is found,” Rogers said.

Rogers said Menchavez Pediatrics was the lone practice remaining in the Braddock Medical Building, staying there while purchasing a health systems building at 915 Bishop Walsh Road, to which it moved Friday.

Braddock Hospital had no closer neighbor than Lions Center and its nursing home.

Besides noticing the dramatic drop in automobile traffic, Lions Center Administrator Troy Raines said other changes have been minor.

“We know that we would receive some foot traffic from the hospital,” Raines said. “When somebody needs a nursing home it is often following a hospital stay for an acute illness. There were times when family members would leave the hospital and come to us to take care of a family member.

“But we continue to have a great working relationship with the health system’s social services department.”

Cumberland City Administrator Jeff Repp said although there is no internal security at the Memorial campus, city police continue to make spot checks there as they patrol. “We also have camera surveillance,” Repp said.

The future of the Memorial Hospital structure is a little less mysterious. The city has leased it for 10 years to Ridgecrest Investments, a Frederick company that will attempt to attract tenants. Ridgecrest also has an option to buy the complex for $7 million.

Contact Michael A. Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.