May 29, 2021
Between the 1920’s and 1960’s the Catskills was the premiere summer destination for Jewish New Yorkers, earning the area the colloquialism The Borscht Belt. Before the dawn of commercial air travel, the sprawling resorts of The Borscht Belt offered activities and a lot of fun in the sun. Though some Read more…
December 1, 2020
The future of Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital, a groundbreaking care center that employed homeopathic techniques in treating mental illness that opened in 1874 as the State Homeopathic Asylum for the Insane at Middletown, is still in limbo. Its history remains in a sprawl of buildings off State Route 211 in Read more…
May 3, 2020
Facing the active parking lot for the walking paths the runs through Letchworth Village is an administrative building with no roof. A victim of arson years ago, the building is barely fenced and, upon our arrival, explorers walk freely within the crumbled walls that remain. In fact, people wandered through the Read more…
I had to consult this map of Letchworth Village to figure out what this building was, a wide open space that my wide angle lens just loved to shoot. It is named Attendants Building, but appeared to be a kind of communal gathering space. There was the usual raunchy graffiti, Read more…
The Hospital of a Farm Colony is always the saddest structure. Particularly at Letchworth Village‘s grounds, the birthplace of the human trial. Except the human trials performed at Letchworth were without consent. Inhumane a tremendous understatement, doctors–who classified patients as either “idiot,” “imbecile,” or “moron”–were reported to collect brains from Read more…
Jewish patients were able to worship on the premises of Letchworth Village after 1977, when Congregation B’nai Israel was built. The temple has been abandoned since the hospital closed in 1996. This was a favorite location to photograph for many reasons although it is just a single room. For one, Read more…
After my first visit to Letchworth Village in February, I knew that I would soon return. The expansive cluster of accessible remnants to the asylum for the physically and mentally disabled that was established over 100 years ago seems destined for eventual demolition… like in your next step through its Read more…
May 2, 2020
Creepy places on a beautiful day? Yes please. Emboldened by company and the bright blue sky, I watched the peeling paint in Rockland State Hospital‘s staff quarters. Following the sun’s rays out and about, there was just so much to explore. I wanted to take that hutch. We found it 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…
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…
July 6, 2019
What do you get when you photograph the exteriors of abandoned places after nautical twilight? You get a photographic mash-up: Astro-UrbEx! Which has like no google search results, so maybe I coined it? Also, you get mosquito bites and you get very scared… a lot. Given these thrills I am Read more…
May 5, 2019
I was so excited to participate in one of Matthew Christopher’s Abandoned America photography workshops this past weekend in the Catskills. As I try to more actively improve my skills and knowledge of my camera, it was a great opportunity facilitated by acclaimed photographer of abandoned decay Matthew Christopher. But Read more…
October 20, 2018
Pollepel Island is a small island in the Hudson River most known for Bannerman Castle. A man named Francis Bannerman purchased the island in 1900, building the castle to store surplus military equipment–which was his livelihood. And those stockpiles of shells and gunpowder are to blame for substantial damage to Read more…
September 17, 2017
I’ve begun to understand that observing the world’s beauty is my most favorite therapy. And if you look for it, you’ll find it most everywhere. From delicate macaron feet peeking out from a soft pastel shell to the browned crisped dough of a pastry that some young lady made lovingly Read more…
October 4, 2016
Raising Statues to the Dead by Louis Daniel Brodsky From this grassy vantage where I sit, Watching students pass, in twos, threes And singly, through lilac and redbud hues, Like colors escaping a coruscating prism Or balloons lifting vertiginously, My shadow casts its stolid mass. The contrast between its static Read more…