April 19, 2020
Though it has become a source of disturbance and confusion, my want to uncover the abandoned lands that hold lost asylum patients has compelled me to trudge into thorny thickets now thrice. (Sorry, watching a Jane Austen movie). I was a bit uneasy this visit, having caught sight of several Read more…
April 15, 2020
Of course I had to throw in a couple of macabre stops while I was in New Jersey for its beautiful tulip fields. After a quick recon mission at the still partially functioning Trenton State Hospital, now Trenton Psychiatric Hospital, I deemed it worthy for a return at a later Read more…
April 13, 2020
While in town to explore the cemeteries, I attempted to get back into the hospital grounds, now Olivet University. After finding maps of the property, I saw there was so much I had yet to explore. But there was an SUV at the gate that asked me to stop. The Read more…
The Eastern Gate of Heaven When I, upon returning home, realized I had missed seeing the Harlem Valley State Hospital’s cemetery, I knew I’d be back soon. The grounds of its Potters Field, called The Gate of Heaven, are very isolated… in the middle of the woods as you can Read more…
April 6, 2020
Gosh, if only I could spend my days driving and stopping at every place that tickles my fancy… Like this old farm. I just loved the contrast the open door created. Farming stuff Creeping closer… Time’s styling: shabby chic It felt nice to runaway… I’ll have to do it again. Read more…
April 5, 2020
This week’s photo excursion: the abandoned Harlem Valley State Hospital in Wingdale in New York’s Dutchess County. The hospital’s history, dating back to 1924, is much like the history of the State’s other rural farm colonies. Sprawling self-sufficient campus, catch-all for the “insane,” insulin shock therapy, eletro-shock therapy, ice-pick lobotomies Read more…
March 29, 2020
Some photos from my recon mission to check the status of the old Wrigley Gum Factory (for sale!) which still sits mostly purposeless on Staten Island’s north shore. At the time of my visit, park goers sat in nearby Buono Beach, part of Alice Austen Park, contemplating life in solitude. Read more…
It’s always the staff quarters that are so much more accessible than other abandoned hospital parts. Sure they don’t promise the kind of eerie details so attractive to an urban explorer, but I enjoy the homeyness, the underpainting of comfort and safety as time and neglect peel the paint from Read more…
Every time I return to Staten Island Farm Colony’s remains it’s more brightly colored than the last. Because everyone is quarantining and it’s raining, I hoped I could have it all to myself–and I did. Though there was a shiny new fence securing my usual entrance off the Greenbelt Recreation Read more…
March 28, 2020
I had a list of decaying sites to hit on Staten Island, which is steadily becoming one of my favorite places to explore. It’s really close but feels so far away; it’s car friendly; and I pretty much never have to encounter anyone while there. Sure, that’s a skewed view Read more…
March 23, 2020
The first of many urbex missions I’m going to embark on as we’re cautioned to partake in solitary activities, this stop occurred before even gatherings of two were too much. I am happy to report I am listening to Cuomo now. The movie will begin in five momentsThe mindless voice Read more…
Sitting on the shoreline of Jacob Riis Park in the Rockaways is a decaying old hospital, the Neponsit Health Center… previously known as the The Nesponsit Beach Hospital for Children. It was a project of muckraker Jacob Riis who had exposed squalid living conditions in the tenements of New York Read more…
March 14, 2020
Whisking myself away for an abandoned mission in Queens, I wouldn’t have to worry about… other people. But I’d need a safe solo exploration–very easy at Fort Totten in Bayside, Queens. The grounds have a security booth since it contains a U.S. Coast Guard base, an active Army Reserve building, Read more…
February 29, 2020
The entirety of the Pilgrim State Farm Colony was powered by its own power plant, generating electricity through the burning of coal in a transfer of energy: from chemical to thermal to mechanical to, finally, electrical energy. Massive carbon emitters, the use of this kind of electricity has been phased Read more…
I said I’d be back. But this time, I brought reinforcement. Today’s photographic missions were all about entrance, chasing the light as it streamed within the decaying structures of both Kings Park State Hospital and Pilgrim State. First, Kings Park State Hospital. We explored the doctors’ cottages because of the Read more…
February 19, 2020
I came across this vacant gas station in my daytime exploration of Borrego Springs and stayed for a bit. It was squeaky clean with a positive energy that was far less alluring to capture. Perhaps because someone had sponge painted a lot of the interior walls. I did enjoy the Read more…
February 17, 2020
Back in the 1930’s an elaborate compound was constructed within Rustic Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains. Its purpose, to sustain and thrive inside the political chaos amidst the aftermath of Nazi Germans fulfilling their political and military goals. You see, the 4-million dollar investment was built by Nazi sympathizers Read more…
February 3, 2020
Letchworth Village‘s cemetery, like that of many state-run institutions, marks its graves with nothing but a number. No dates, no names. The state policy adopted by the Office of Mental Health is to keep burial records for state mental hospitals confidential. But this practice is dated and marked with indignity, Read more…
Letchworth Village, established 1911 in Rockland County, New York, is a decaying farm colony that was once a progressive solution to caring for the physically and mentally disabled. And like Staten Island’s Willowbrook State School, the hospital’s treatment of its most vulnerable patients –children– prompted major legislative reforms in the Read more…
February 2, 2020
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. Read more…
January 31, 2020
When I was scanning satellite maps around the former grounds of The Central Islip State Hospital, I couldn’t happen but notice this: And I knew exactly what it was. The old patient cemetery or the Potter’s Field as almost all of the buried remains are marked only with a small Read more…
My report on Long Island’s Farm Colonies continues with an introductory visit to the former grounds of The Central Islip State Hospital. Like Kings Park State Hospital, Pilgrim State Hospital, and Edgewater State Hospital (not yet explored though mostly demolished and captured on video), the sprawling colony was intended to Read more…
January 20, 2020
With water-repellant pants and some tall rubber boots, I return to the marshes off Arthur Kill in Rossville to see more of the rusting marine refuse. I first explored the distant ships in 2018, but was ill-equipped to venture near them. With a cold, partially frozen ground and said uniform, Read more…
Back in Staten Island? Well, my list of places to see and things to eat grew quickly. Very, very quickly. With a full day of exploration, it’d take three different posts to house the highlights. Starting with the abandoned parts of the active Bayley Seton Hospital in Stapleton. The campus Read more…
January 7, 2020
First, embrace that you need to have some level of idiocy and foolishness to embark upon many a fruitful and rewarding venture. And understand just how unbecoming trying to appear unfoolish is, you–but a peon in this massive Universe. I mean really now. We’re all fools fiddling about– isn’t that Read more…
January 5, 2020
There were only a couple of things on my list I didn’t accomplish during the holiday break from school. Visiting Fairfield State Hospital in Newtown, Connecticut, a lead from a nice person I met while exploring the Seaside Sanatorium, was one of those “to-do”s. I was told the grounds were Read more…