pic from chris marshall, edited by me
saturday afternoon we took what we intended to be a brief trip to the kings park psychiatric center, which turned into a 4 hour wander of 7 buildings. out of 151. we didnt venture into any of the buildings as it is both illegal and extremely dangerous as we were ill-equipped for urban exploring. plus there are massive quantities of peeling lead paint and disintegrating asbestos coatings. however, i found a site with amazing indoor shots from 2003-2005. we also had a nice picnic supper [pasta salad with homemade pesto and homegrown tomato and cucumber] in the green space near buildings 21 22 and 7 which i just found out are the former surgery ward, infirmary, and morgue. lovely.
building 93, the infirmary, is the most well known and housed thousands of patients and is at least 12 stories high. building 15, also known as wisteria, may or may not have housed violent offenders. woo. building 80, york hall, appears to have been a former theatre for patients as the KPPC eventually became akin to a small town. building 83, clearly marked as the safety department for police and fire, had some toxic looking barrels lined up out back and we stood amongst them for a bit hoping they werent radioactive. brilliant i know. also, as it turns out building 1, with its decently maintained parking lot and seemingly random population, is still used to house psychiatric patients. when we wandered off in search of more abandoned buildings, a man passed us and said "dont worry no one will hurt you in there" until then... i wasnt worried about anything really. but thanks for putting that seed in my mind.
mostly it was an architecture photo-op afternoon with some peeking in windows and trying not to imagine the horrible things that happened within the confines of the campus.
some of the best pics:
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