Sunday, February 15, 2015

NY Psych Hospital

2.15.15 

Today, my friend Shawn and I met up at an abandoned psych hospital in NY that closed in 1996. It was 11° outside and there was quite a bit of snow on the ground. I'd say a foot. We were eager to explore — so the weather did not phase us. Interesting and beautiful to see the grounds covered in a blanket of white. Being that it was so cold, the grounds were totally deserted.


We had both been to this hospital before .. but there's always something new to discover at a place this size. Many of the smaller buildings had open doors. The hardest part was walking through the snow to get to the buildings. The buildings all had similar layouts but were slightly different inside, depending on what was left behind ... bed frames, chairs, mattresses and dressers.

I was anxious to see the morgue so Shawn guided the way. It's on the basement level of a very large building near a main road. I had been in that building a few times by myself but never had the courage to explore the basement — most of which is pitch black. I also never even knew there was a morgue. 

We entered through a door on the side of the building and found an old dentist chair in the room on the immediate left.  "Wicked" as Shawn would say. As we made our way down the hall towards the morgue, all of a sudden we saw this face coming towards us. It was like the Jersey Devil himself coming right for us. 

Shawn, the deer hunter, freaked out and ran out of the building! 

I froze.


So what the hell was it? It was a fucking deer. When it got close enough to see me, it stopped, turned around and ran back down the hallway and out of sight. 

That thing scared the shit out of us. 

We laughed our asses off and then slowly made our way back down the hall. When we got to the end of the hallway we saw an open window and hoofprints in the snow. That freaking deer had jumped out the goddamn window. 

We went back down the hallway to the mid-way point and checked out the morgue. Very cool! Just the thought of what went on there and the fact that dead bodies were once on those trays sent chills through me.

We explored this building from top to bottom. Lots of creepy hallways, rooms and dark corners. Peeling paint was everywhere. Someone had written "Death" on one of the wood beams. Nice! An upside down cross was on a bulletin board. Sweet Jesus!  And as trashed as the place was, it's interesting to note that some of the windows still had curtains on them. And there was random stuff like paperwork, books and office equipment. 

The old library was a disaster, having been set on fire a few years ago. It was now exposed to the elements and there was even snow on the floor. Broken fluorescent lights dangled from the ceiling above us. What a strange sight, watching them swinging back and forth as the wind passed through the room.

The wind was really howling outside. We kept hearing doors slamming on the floors above. When we finally got up to the 3rd floor, sure enough ... the doors were opening and closing by themselves. It was obvoiusly the wind, but it was still pretty freaky. One loud slam after another. Bam! Bam!! Bam!!! You'd swear someone was opening and closing the doors. Former patients, most likely. 

There was one dark room that had an amazing illustration of an octopus in it. Love finding stuff like that.  It was quite beautiful.




The chapel next door was sealed up tight on this particular visit. On my first trip here it was open and very strange to see all those empty pews with Bibles covered in mold — just left to rot. There was a church organ as well. That was in 2004, and my first abandoned church. 



In the afternoon we ended up at the power plant, which is enormous and neverending. Every time I've been there I've noticed something different. Since my first visit in 2004 it has been ransacked and tagged like crazy but it's as awesome as ever. There are still rooms filled to the brim with discarded furniture, office equipment, medical equipment and personal items. Those rubber medical mannequins were everywhere. Creepy shit. They reminded me of that old movie, "Westworld" — about robots that look human. 



We found a tunnel but it was flooded and there was water running down the stairs in the distance. It was hard to see how far the tunnel actually went. One room that we entered had a pipe that burst and the water coming out of it was frozen solid. An amazing, natural ice sculpture had been formed. It was one of those moments when I was really glad I had made that turn, to see what was around the corner. 



One room had a big fish on the wall. It was in an old lounge area that also had a TV and a bunch of photographs on the wall. On later visits, the fish was gone. Some urban explorer probably has it hanging over their fireplace. 




We found an interesting room that I missed on previous visits. It seemed to be a refrigerator for books. There were shelves and shelves of old books ... in what looked like a temperature controlled setting. Very strange. Was it a temperature controlled area for important documents? I have never seen pictures of this area on any urbex websites. 


The various rooms in the powerplant were huge and overwhelming. They looked like boiler rooms on the Queen Mary.  There were pipes going in every direction and grated floors that allowed you to see down to a lower level. Really incredible stuff. There were also smaller offices, still filled with books and tools and personal items.  
One room had a mattress on the floor and there was a nasty-ass pillow on it. Surely, someone had been sleeping there, but I don't think it was Goldilocks. Thank God, we didn't run into anyone. 


Something that sticks out in my mind about this place (besides the deer charging at us) is the sight of paint melting down the walls. In the summer months, it gets so hot in those buildings that the paint literally melts off the walls. Crazy shit. You definitley don't see that everyday. 


One of the creepiest and most disturbing discoveries was a room full of cardboard boxes. Many of them were labeled, "Deaths". I will never understand why those types of files are left behind. So much personal, confidential information right there for anyone in the world to see
Despite the insane amount of time we spent here, there are still several areas that we have yet to explore. Some of them are sealed up tight but we will come back another time, I'm sure. 


WARNING: PLEASE NOTE THAT TRESPASSING IS ILLEGAL AND I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT. THOSE WHO DISREGARD THIS ADVICE RUN THE RISK OF BEING ARRESTED AND CHARGED. THIS BLOG IS ONLY ONE PERSONS EXPERIENCE. YOURS MAY BE DIFFERENT.