Betsy Moschetta, of Penn Hills, still drives past the yellow brick facility in Oakland that used to be Children's Hospital every day on her way to work. Her daughter Samantha spent several weeks there each year receiving treatment for cystic fibrosis.

The Children's signs are gone now, no blue-scrubbed nurses spill out onto DeSoto Street and the line of cars stretching out onto Fifth Avenue has vanished.

"I feel sort of nostalgic about it," she said. "It's sort of sad."

Dr. Angelo Runco, who has treated patients at Children's since his residency in 1951, drives by once a week or so, too.

"That was my home. I lived there for three years," he said, recalling the days when most resident physicians lived at the hospitals where they worked.

"I loved that old building."

Children's Hospital moved to a new Lawrenceville campus three months ago, but the empty building at Fifth and DeSoto still triggers powerful memories and emotions for those who invested part of their lives there.

"It was the place that brought life back to Aaron," said Clarissa Amon, of Jackson Center, Mercer County, whose son, now 7, had a heart transplant at Children's last year to repair a congenital heart defect.

"We went through the darkest days of our lives in that place. There's so much emotion attached to it."

There is still some medical activity at the old Children's, though not visible to passers-by. Medical evacuation helicopters delivering adult trauma patients to Presbyterian University Hospital still land on the Children's rooftop helipad.

But most everything else got emptied out one weekend in May for the move to Lawrenceville and now, said Dr. Runco, "There it stands like a dead elephant."

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center spokesman Frank Raczkiewicz said the building has been offered as possible housing for out-of-town police and security details assigned to next month's G-20 summit.

Beyond that, he said, "We are still in the preliminary planning stages" of what to do with the 2.65-acre campus, which Allegheny County has valued at $32.4 million for the building and $1.8 million for the land.

Those with emotional attachments to the place have one hope: They don't want to see it demolished.

"It would be weird to have it torn down," said Mrs. Moschetta. "Not seeing it would mean a part of our past is gone."

Over the course of a half century in the building, Dr. Runco witnessed history at Children's -- he and other recently graduated residents went to schools to draw blood for Jonas Salk's polio vaccine study -- as well as the many triumphs and tragedies that play out at any hospital.

Not many adult hospitals get a personal visit from Gene Autry, who Dr. Runco said once brought his horse into the building to meet the children, and not many patients get serenaded by the University of Pittsburgh Marching Band, which would stop outside as it made its way to Pitt Stadium for a Saturday football game.

Dr. Runco, 83, has admitting privileges at the new Children's and thinks the new $625 million facility is terrific. But that building on DeSoto still has an emotional hold. "I'd hate to see it torn down."

It's not that the building, with its 1930s original construction, was without its discomforts and inconveniences. Various additions and upgrades through the years improved the facility but also could cause confusion for those trying to get from one department to another.

At one point in 2002, Mrs. Amon spent three consecutive months at the hospital with Aaron, putting her name in each day in the lottery for one of the sleep rooms. Those who didn't win slept on one of the pediatric ICU waiting room couches.

"It was all we knew, and we were just appreciative of any accommodation to be able to stay with him," she said.

Dr. Runco said the new hospital may have private rooms and more space, but Children's patients received the same high level of care six months ago at the old building.

In his view, Children's had to move, not because it was out of date, but because the neighborhood had become nearly unnavigable. "Oakland is a mess," was his blunt assessment.

No matter what happens to the old structure, those who remember the place fondly agreed it was the people who made Children's "and not just the cardiologist and the nurses, but the everyday people, the people who mopped your rooms and the people in the cafeteria who fed you every day," said Mrs. Amon.

"There will always be thoughts and emotions connected to that building, even though the care continues somewhere else.

"The new hospital is definitely an improvement, but right now it is so overwhelming. We're not at a place where it feels like home yet."