Long Live the King: Part II

(Continued from Part I)

This is the most heavily explored remaining building at this old psych hospital. When I say heavily explored, I mean they may as well charge an entry fee. The town would make more money doing that than writing tickets.

Some people complain that this building is a lost cause, but I disagree 100%. Yes, parts of it are utterly vandalized and thrashed. But other parts are still beautiful, and fun to photograph, and I enjoyed wandering around. It was beautiful outside, the sun was out and the birds were chirping. It made the wards feel airy and light, and almost happy. Peaceful. Odd for such a place you’d typically think of as dark.

There’s THE gurney. We’ve all had a ride on it.

Everybody wave at Matthew.

So yeah, the vandalism. The ground floor was just chaos. Razing, tags, arson, garbage, collapse.

Many of the beds must have been moved down to the ground floor on closing. There were tons stacked up on their sides.

But, look! There’s still beauty here.

This place had a lot of caged off areas. The stairs are always obvious, but many of the elevators were caged off too.

I’d be interested in knowing if this facility closed around the holidays. I noticed a lot of Christmas decorations (tinsel, window hangings) on the floors in some of the common rooms, and then there was this Christmas dress hanging in a window. It appears to be patient-made, maybe a craft project.

So, there’s my take on this place. I’ve got one more in the queue before it’ll be time to dust off the combat boots and go shoot some more. ‘Til then.

Once again, go check out my photographer friend infraredrobert‘s blog as he shares his interpretation of this beautiful beast of a hospital.