May 25, 2020
The burial ground for the unclaimed deceased patients of The Connecticut Valley State Hospital was active between 1878 through 1950. The small historically protected cemetery located in Middletown, Connecticut contains 1,686 numerical markers, each a life lost at the psychiatric hospital. Though the names of the interred remained private as Read more…
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
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…
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…
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…