Abandoned Rockland State Hospital Staff Quarters🛏️ -

I hatched a scheme to take myself on another abandoned photography mission in light of a Sunday that would surely have lighter traffic. And it turned out to be perfect timing, with sunshine for my early start and heavy foreboding clouds behind the many decaying structures I’d meet with enthusiasm. And as I left back towards New York City, the light rain began.

On my exploratory itinerary, two asylums and an asylum’s cemetery, all relatively close to each other and just about an hour away from Brooklyn. Besides outdated internet intel and unknown redevelopment timelines, a slew of other variables make exploration just that–exploratory. But time was on my side and variables were favorable. So first, Rockland State Hospital in Orangeburg, New York.

Well, actually–I only photographed the staff quarters which are across the street from the hospital site beyond those iron gates. Many of the hospital buildings have already been demolished and a still-active state hospital, Rockland Psychiatric Center, operates on the premises. Not wanting to have my photos erased again, I found more than enough for some great shots at the very easily accessible employee quarters, parking easily at a public tennis court right off of the main road.

These mild winter days are ideal for urban exploration. Everything is browned and twiggy, like Bob Ross took some burnt umber and dry-brushed all the happy little abandoned asylum buildings.

And there were so many open doors. Doors I’d eventually step into which speaks to the perfection in the day’s conditions. I am regularly cautious–and the Barclays Center recently confiscated my mace.

The hospital had a terrible past. Opened in 1931, it was meant to help alleviate the city’s asylums. You have heard that before. In fact, all the old asylum grounds I visit are in this predicament–bucolic location, expansive colony of self sufficiency–deemed no longer necessary. Inside their ruins, something painful, something confused, something shameful. Their histories impart a mood of intensity, manifesting in neglect.