The Kingston Lounge

Trenton State Hospital, Forst Building

2012-01-09T12:24:00.009-05:00

View into patient room and down corridor during civil twilight.

Trenton State Hospital - currently known as Trenton Psychiatric Hospital, and formerly the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum - is one of the most historically significant asylum campuses in America. The first asylum constructed according to the Kirkbride Plan, it was also the first erected due to the advocacy of Dorothea Dix. The main building was designed by John Notman, and completed in 1848. In the mid-1960s, the grand administrative section was demolished, and replaced with the utilitarian modern structure known as the Stratton Building.

A good ways to the southeast of the main building, past a disused swimming pool and baseball diamond, two large buildings stand next to a cluster of smaller cottages. The Marquand Building is still fully operational, although disconnected from the services of the physical plant far to the northwest; this building administers the cluster of active cottages nearby. The larger Forst building, a three-story building next to Marquand, has been abandoned for decades, and it is something of an enigma - with little reliable information readily available, the only clues we have as to its history are those we can read into site visits and photographs created during site visits.

Large patient bedroom during nautical twilight.

Whereas most of the buildings featured on this blog have well documented histories that can be confirmed through multiple primary and secondary sources, there is almost no information readily available on the Forst Building, save what can be learned from analyzing the structure itself. The only references to the structure online are documents pointing to plans by the State of New Jersey to demolish it in the near future. Annual reports from the asylum from the end of the 19th and first decade of the 20th centuries make no reference to this building, nor does the overview report of the State Hospital system from 1965. A 1913 annual report mentions the construction of a nurses' home somewhat removed from the campus - but this could equally refer to Forst, Marquand, or a number of other structures extant and demolished.

From architectural clues - the layout of the Forst Building, the methods and materials employed in its construction, and the mix of utilitarian design with a few architectural flourishes - a few things can be inferred, though they cannot be assumed without further evidence. The building was likely constructed some time between the 1920s and 1940. The unsecured and intact windows, of clear and even glass, help confirm that it is not much older, as well as giving clues towards its purpose - it's very possible that it was originally a staff housing building, and if not, it certainly wasn't a secure ward - it may have been a minimum-security ward for convalescent patients. In the central wing on each floor, there is a large room with an unadorned brick fireplace. This works with either theory - these could have been the common areas shared by nurses or orderlies living in the building; alternately, they could have been lounges for staff on break, or dayrooms for patients, although the large rooms at either end of each floor seem more suited to the latter purpose.

Artifact clues paint a clearer picture of more recent uses of the structure, and give a ballpark timeline for its abandonment. On the first floor, there are piles of literature concerned with addiction and recovery - suggesting that the final use of the building was as an inpatient rehab facility. Indeed, the layout of the structure itself would have lent itself quite well to this purpose. Most artifact evidence points to abandonment in stages; while the southern wing of the building is nearly devoid of objects in situ, the central wing still contains beds, furniture, and a small scattering of patient belongings, and the northern wing is basically cluttered with things left behind, suggesting it was the last section of the building to be vacated. The majority of items left on the top two floors suggest an abandonment date in the mid-late 1970s, with the exception of a newpaper from the early 1980s - this could, of course, have been left by an interloper. Evidence on the first floor, including office machinery and paperwork, points to its use into the early 80s - it's possible that the first floor was still in use after the top two were vacated.

The central hallway connecting the three wings of the building, showing extensive roof damage, taken during civil twilight.

A closer look at the roof damage, taken mid-day five years earlier.

The top landing of the staircase in the northern wing during civil twilight.

Top-floor hallway junction highlighting water damage to roof.

The top-floor lounge area in the central wing, with a simple brick fireplace topped by a somewhat ornate wooden mantle.

The northern wing of the structure is littered with artifacts ranging from patient clothes to half-full jars of barbecue sauce, cleaning products, books, and other assorted things that were not removed by patients when the building was abandoned.

A typical room on the top floor of the northern wing of the building; a dresser has been emptied out, and various objects have been left amidst the fallen plaster.

Under a table, a toothbrush and small plastic bottle sit among plaster and paint chips.

The artifacts found throughout the northern wing are quite varied in type - here, a seashell sits next to a can of hairspray and a pair of denim jeans on a mouldering carpet.

A well-preserved lampshade hangs precariously off the edge of a utilitarian table.

A pair of Nike shoes - apparently predating their iconic "swoop" logo - sits on a table next to a patient bed.

Several closets still contain clothing, among other belongings - here, a pair of pants remains folded over a rusting hanger.

A pair of refrigerators - which still have containers of various food items inside - sit inside a room that was presumably a communal kitchen, although no stove or sink was present.

A crutch still leans against the wall next to a bed.

Many of the patient rooms in the central wing still contain beds and furniture, and in the northern wing, many still contain belongings. This suggests relatively rapid abandonment, and the fact that apparently useable beds, refrigerators, and other furniture and appliances were not removed for use in other buildings or state facilities helps to confirm this.

Sunrise streaming across door into patient bedroom in central wing of the top floor.

Each room had a metal tag with its numeric designation stamped into it - the fact that metal tags were used, as well as the layers of paint which made it onto the tags, suggest that they were either an original feature of the building or an early addition.

The patient in room 1 was likely a devout Christian. Or a devoted Elvis fan.

A passive-aggressive note was left on the door to room 2 by the housekeeping department, and later added onto by the fire department. Five years later, the note was gone.

A typical patient bedroom, with two blacklight posters still attached to the wall. By five years later, the blue poster had been removed, and the artifacts in the room rearranged, likely by a photographer looking to create an interesting (but artificial) scene.

A damaged feather pillow - a stark contrast to the cheap synthetic or horsehair pillows found at most asylums. This pillow was later placed in the room with the blacklight posters, probably as part of an arranged photograph.

This bedframe still had a shipping tag from the manufacturer attached. As the tag refers to the facility as "State Hospital" and not "Psychiatric Hospital", it predates 1972.

The southern wing of the building is nearly bereft of artifacts; none of the rooms contain beds, and only a few objects of any sort remain. This suggests that this was the first ward vacated while the building was being closed down.

Hallway in the southern wing of the building, with view into a room containing one of the few remaining artifacts - a medical work desk.

A typical empty room on the top floor of the southern wing. Although evidence points to it being the first ward abandoned, it is also has the most intact roofs.

Another southern-wing room, demonstrating the colors from the overgrown windows and reflection from the bricks of the building cast upon the plaster wall.

Second-floor hallway in the southern wing. The unsecured transoms above the doors provide further evidence that this building was never a medium- or maximum-security ward.

The chair beside this tub is clearly marked so that it was not removed to a patient's room or common area.

This top-floor southern-wing bathroom has suffered significant water damage, and has created an environment conducive to the invasion of climbing vines.

The second-floor landing of the heavily decayed southern staircase; vines have climbed in through a window on the switchback landing and made their way down the stairs.

The first floor features a hallway with various psychedelic paint designs on the walls; here, the paint has mostly covered an old hand-painted guide pointing towards the fallout shelter.

A wooden chair in one of the hallways; this was almost certainly placed here by another photographer to create an artificial scene - note the fallen plaster upon the chair, and the lack of similar plaster surrounding it.

This first floor classroom contained a small number of desks, as well as some literature on drug rehabilitation - it could have functioned as a meeting place for Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

There's only so much that can be learned from site visits without actual documentation - and so, my readers, I call upon you to please email me with any information, anecdotes, suggestions for sources, etc, so that I can firm up the history of this unique and interesting building which still resonates with the feel of the Age of Aquarius.

The now-missing "Afro Love" poster that once adorned a patient's bedroom. This poster was printed in 1974, and thus it can be inferred that this building was vacated no earlier than this year.

Convent of St. Mary, Abbey and Chapel, Peekskill, NY

2011-09-16T11:46:00.010-04:00

The 1876 Abbey of the Community of St. Mary, shot by moonlight.

For over a century, the Convent at Mount St. Gabriel, a picturesque plot of land in the highlands of Peekskill, NY, was home to the Community of St. Mary. From its humble beginnings in 1872 in a clapboard farmhouse, the Convent soon grew into a multi-building complex with a full church, a school, and ample housing for both the Sisters and their charges. By 2003, when the convent moved to Greenwich, NY, the school had already been repurposed, but the Abbey proper, as well as the Chapel, remained vacant, as they have to this day.

Based on a Benedictine model, the Community of St. Mary adheres to a simple monastic life centered around prayer, reflection, and service. From tumultuous beginnings, including an uphill battle against the established positions of the Church on monastic orders in general, the CSM eventually flourished after being widely recognized for the selfless acts of its Sisters in service to the community. It is the oldest indigenous Anglican order in the New World, and the first monastic body constituted by the Episcopal Church since the dissolution of monasteries in the 16th century.

While the forms of service practiced by the nuns of the order have varied over the years and regions, at this particular complex, the running of a school and the manufacture of communion wafers were a primary focus. In 1977, as a result of declining enrollment, the Episcopal church closed the school, and the parcel of land containing it was sold off to a private developer; in the early 1980s, the 1911 building was converted to luxury condominiums. The Chaplain's House on the grounds is now the private residence of a local doctor, and has been gut renovated.

But since the CSM moved to a larger property in Greenwich, New York, in 2003, little has been done to the 1876 Abbey and 1896 Chapel buildings. The interiors of each are, for the most part, gutted; work was begun on the buildings, but never completed, due to the subprime mortgage collapse. Some significant interior architectural features have been left intact, but the majority of the structures have been stripped down to their frames. The properties are owned by Ginsburg Development, and their website indicates that they will be developed as "The Abbey at Fort Hill", a 12-unit luxury condo complex. This would be to the benefit of the town of Peekskill, which sorely needs the tax revenue, but also to the benefit of the Community of St. Mary - as part of the proposed development, Ginsburg would relocate the cemetery to the Greenwich location, bringing the founding Sisters to the modern convent.

The majority of the Abbey was gutted in between 2003, when the property was vacated, and the subprime mortgage collapse of 2008.

Untouched so far, the chapel on the second floor of the Abbey is remarkably intact.

During the heyday of the Convent, this chapel was primarily used to provide services for ailing nuns, who were housed on the second floor of the building.

As membership in the Convent and its school declined, the small chapel was used for most services, and the large 1896 Chapel building was only used for special functions.

The ornate hand-painted walls were finished prior to the start of the First World War, and are holding up remarkably well.

Very few interior architectural details remain, but apparently the developers feel that the original wooden staircases will fit with their luxury condo designs.

A view through one of the dormer windows on the third floor, looking towards the Chapel building.

An ornate spiral staircase leads from the first to the third floors.

This mechanism, with an array of gears and dangling weights, led up into what was possibly a bell tower.

View of the grounds at sundown. To the left is the Abbey, and to the right is the Chapel.

A dusk view of the 1896 Chapel, which was constructed of locally quarried stone - during this time period, labor was cheap, and materials expensive.

A font on the outside of the chapel; the inscription translates (roughly) as "Lydia: rest thou well and pray for us".

The bell tower on the Chapel building.

A view to the road leading away from the Convent.

For more images of the Convent, check out Amy Heiden Photography.

The Divine Lorraine Hotel, Philadelphia, PA

2011-02-06T03:44:00.005-05:00

Ballroom in 2006, in the midst of being gutted; the marble floor was in the process of being pulled up.

Personal note: I feel compelled by recent reports of the deteriorating conditions at The Divine Lorraine to write this article, which I may only accompany by some photos taken in the span of a couple of hours in 2006. The Lorraine is NRHP listed for both its architectural import and its significance in civil rights as the first integrated hotel in Philadelphia. It is currently in significant danger of demolition-by-neglect. Because the building is now gutted and deteriorating, I cannot reshoot the photographic content for this article, so I must present what I have, warts and all.

View of building from tiny porch attached to bedroom.

Not-So-Humble Beginnings

The building currently known as the Divine Lorraine Hotel has been a fixture on North Broad Street in Philadelphia for over a century. It was designed, as the “Lorraine Apartments”, by controversial architect Willis G. Hale in his characteristically theatrical high-Victorian style. Construction began in 1892 and took two years to finish. At the time, the building was praised by few – Hale’s style was seen as outdated, being typified by extravagant ornamentation, and many viewed the Lorraine as bombastic.

Nevertheless, it was a very luxurious building, and among the first high-rise apartment buildings in Philadelphia. Offering an in-house staff that eliminated the need for personal servants, a central kitchen in which meals were prepared for tenants, and two luxurious ballrooms for events, the Lorraine briefly attracted the upper crust of city renters. In 1900, it was purchased by a new interest which converted it into a hotel. It continued to attract a wealthy clientele until its sale in 1948 to Father Divine, who anticipated a very different use for the structure.

A typical hallway in the Lorraine.

Typical bedrooms in the Lorraine contained features such as this small fireplace.

One of the few beds remaining when the building was photographed.

Most of the artifacts that had been left in the Lorraine were moved down to first floor and affixed with price tags; apparently, these books weren't worth the hassle.

The most common artifact found in the hotel: a copy of the Bible.

The only television seen in the entire structure; Father Divine was said to have frowned on the viewing of TV.

A bathtub was pulled halfway out of this crumbling bathroom.

A room on the Ninth Floor. This is supposed to have been the room in which Father Divine's wife lived; even the head of the movement was not exempted from the rules prohibiting cohabitation.

A view from one room into the room across the hall. The rooms were painted in a variety of pastel colors.

Introduction of the Divine

George Baker was born, likely in Maryland, to two former slaves. From humble beginnings as a gardener and itinerant Baptist preacher, he came to envision himself first as a divine messenger, and eventually as a deity himself. He granted himself the title of Reverend Major Jealous Divine, and became known to his rapidly growing congregations as Father Divine. In his early years, his preachings focused primarily on the virtues of celibacy and the downplaying of gender roles.

The front of the tenth-floor chapel, originally one of two ballrooms in the Lorraine Apartments.

Father Divine and his congregation moved frequently in the early years, and eventually settled in New York. Several times, he ran afoul of the law, and he moved around the city, and outside the city. Meanwhile, his message shifted towards civil rights. Unlike many black preachers of the day, he was not polarized against whites – Father Divine’s message centered around equality, and he focused on desegregation, anti-lynching legislation, and similar issues. He formalized his movement into a church, the International Peace Mission Movement.

In 1942, Divine’s legal troubles caused him to flee New York; he ended up in Philadelphia. In 1944, Johnny Mercer attended a sermon entitled “You got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.” Mercer wrote his trademark song the following year. Meanwhile, Divine decided to open up a number of residences for his flock, which he referred to as Heavens. In 1948, he purchased the Lorraine Hotel for $485,000, reopening it as a Heaven under its new, and final, name: The Divine Lorraine.

A Bible lays open to the book of Job on a dresser; this would almost seem a fitting metaphor for the building itself, were it not so likely that someone had intentionally left it like that.

Because of his focus on celibacy, even within marriage, Divine divided the structure by floors; men and women would not share a floor. Modesty was expected of the residents; women had to wear long skirts, and men, long pants. Alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes were forbidden, as was swearing, mixing of the sexes outside of meals and church functions, and any form of blasphemy.

The clientele of the Lorraine changed drastically; congregants were simply given rooms to live in, as they were expected to have already turned over their savings to Divine. Additional rooms were available to rent, but the prices were low, and the Lorraine no longer attracted the upper-class residents that once called it home. The hotel was fully integrated, with no preference for race, and religious belief outside the movement was accepted so long as it did not contradict the teachings of Father Divine. A soup kitchen was operated out of the first floor of the building, providing hot meals to the indigent of the neighborhood.

When Father Divine took over the Lorraine, this statuette was affixed to the front. If any readers know who the statue portrays, please let me know.

Father Divine passed away at his estate in Gladwyne, PA, in 1965. His second wife, Edna Rose Ritchings, who was significantly younger than he, took over leadership of the movement. The congregation continued to operate the Divine Lorraine. In the early 70s, cult leader Jim Jones split off from the International Peace Mission Movement, forming the Peoples Temple – the group which would eventually commit mass suicide in Jonestown. Eventually, the movement began to dwindle – Father Divine’s teachings forbade sex, and the movement stopped attracting new members – and most of the Heavens had to be sold. In 2000, the congregation parted with the Divine Lorraine Hotel.

A wide view of the chapel just after first light.

Detail of the proscenium over the tiny stage from which Father Divine gave his sermons.

The rear of the chapel.

Detail of the "God" inlay at the rear of the chapel.

Sale, Gutting, and Neglect

David Peace, an adherent to the International Peace Mission Movement, continued to reside in the building from 2000 until 2006, maintaining it to the best of his abilities. This proved relatively easy to do – because in a rare turn for an economically beleaguered neighborhood, area dealers and squatters had so much respect for the legacy of Father Divine that there were few attempts to trespass in, or vandalize, the structure.

The Divine Lorraine was listed on the National Registry of Historic Places in 2002. In May 2006, Philadelphia developer Michael Treacy, Jr. purchased the building and formed a development team to oversee its use. He promised that the building would be rehabilitated as a mixed-use property, consisting of 135 condominiums and a large-scale restaurant, and that the historical integrity of the landmark would be preserved.

Most of the furniture and other artifacts from the Lorraine were gathered on the first floor and affixed with prices, ready for a rummage sale.

For a few months, little happened, and then work crews began to show up at the building. But they were not there to rehab – little by little, they began to tear the building apart, selling off pieces to architectural salvage companies and interested individuals. Marble floors were removed from the ballroom and chapel; wooden floors were torn up and bundled, bathtubs were gathered in hallways. Even the ornate plasterwork was torn apart. And after the building was thoroughly scavenged, it was completely abandoned, without any significant measure being taken even to shore up the roofs.

A plywood walkway was constructed at the rear entrance to facilitate moving demolition equipment in and out - as well as objects being sold, such as the kitchen equipment lined up to the left.

As it turns out, the developer had no intention of rehabilitating and preserving the Lorraine unless the city and neighborhood bowed to a number of concessions, including fiscal benefits, additional land acquisition, and favorable zoning. When the developer did not receive the requested concessions, he gutted the building, sold what he could for salvage, and left the structure to rot. David Peace no longer watches over it, and having gutted, it is no longer treated with the reverence it once was. It has become a home to squatters and members of the drug community, and has been heavily vandalized; its exterior is now covered in graffiti. Water damage too has quickly become an issue. Less than half a decade’s worth of neglect has reduced the Divine Lorraine to an endangered shell.

The grand stairwell from the first to the second floors was sheathed in plywood; recent photographs indicated that the stairs themselves were torn apart for the marble, and only an iron skeleton remains.

When I visited the Lorraine in 2006, salvage was well underway. In this hallway, the hardwood floor has been torn up and bundled for sale.

In this room, the tub was pulled from the bathroom, and the marble tiles were then ripped out and placed against the wall. The doors have also been removed.

A room in which the hardwood floor has already been scavenged; it appears that the door is next.

The door here has been removed, as well as the brass hinge. Even the screws from the switch-plate were taken.

Throughout the lower floors of the building, various like objects were grouped together by kind, presumably to facilitate sale. Here, doors are stacked against each other in rows.

Dozens of radiators filled another room.

The bathtubs were removed from this floor's bathrooms and lined up in the hallway.

Even the mattresses, unused in over half a decade, were priced to sell.

As a Closing Note

It is unacceptable that this building, a national as well as a local landmark, is falling prey to demolition-by-neglect. While the figure of Father Divine and the nature of his movement may be controversial, it is uncontroversial that he was an important precursor to the civil rights struggle, and that the Divine Lorraine had a significant role in this history, both by association and by virtue of its status as the first integrated hotel in Philadelphia. Further, it is a remarkable building, and one of the few Hale commissions still standing. The avarice of a developer who gutted the building, “taking her for all she was worth”, and then walked away, should not be allowed to cause the eventual destruction of this treasure.

I would urge all of my readers in Philadelphia to get involved on some level with the preservation of this structure. And I would urge all of my readers outside of Philadelphia to spread the word. If there is enough public outcry over this, if the right people are appropriately shamed, perhaps the Divine Lorraine stands a chance of being a jewel of Philadelphia once again.

This tiny cross placed upon a lightswitch had managed to endure.

North Brother Island - Riverside Hospital

2011-01-13T20:45:00.023-05:00

The overgrown main road running north-south through the island; to the right are the nurses' residence and doctors' cottage, and to the left, the maintenance building and tennis courts.

A Brief Introduction

Of all the forgotten and mysterious places in the Five Boroughs of New York City, few have histories as rich and interesting as that of North Brother Island. Situated in the Hell Gate, a particularly treacherous stretch of the East River, North Brother was home to the quarantine hospital that housed Typhoid Mary, was the final destination of the General Slocum during its tragic final voyage, and was the site of an experimental drug treatment program which failed due to corruption. Riverside Hospital, the name of the facility on the island throughout its various incarnations, treated everything from smallpox and leprosy to venereal disease and heroin addiction; after the Second World War, it housed soldiers who were studying under the GI bill. The entirety of the island has been abandoned since 1963; over a dozen buildings remain, in various states of disrepair.

The gantry crane at the ferry slip which would transport patients and staff to its sister slip in Port Morris.

North Brother Island remains off-limits to the public due to its designation as a protected nesting area, and it is home to a rare colony of black-crowned night herons. As such, it remains an inscrutable mystery to most New Yorkers, even though it is closer to the Empire State Building than most of Brooklyn. Derelict for nearly half a century, it provides fascinating glimpses into demolition by neglect, into the architecture of quarantine, and into the collective history of the islands of the outer boroughs; like Hart Island to the northeast, and Blackwell’s Island to the southwest, North Brother was used as a dumping ground for indigent New Yorkers stricken with social disease. Here is a look at the island in its present condition, as well as a brief overview of its history.

The Western Buildings

An access road leads between the morgue to the right, and the physical plant and coal house to the left.

The situation of the building which housed the morgue and pathology labs right beside the ferry dock at first seems a little strange – why would the island’s planners put a building symbolic of death near the entry point of a place where the hope was recovery and convalescence? The answer lies in the fact that this building was originally the island’s chapel – explaining the gothic-arched windows inlaid with stained glass, as well as its odd location. When the island’s population expanded, a new wooden chapel was built to the south; the old chapel was repurposed. This proved convenient during outbreaks as well; bodies could be removed to the potter's field on Hart Island or to other cemeteries with relative haste after autopsy.

The refrigeration room in the morgue. Individual cabinets for corpses were not used in this morgue. Mary Mallon - widely known as Typhoid Mary - worked in the pathology lab in the same building during her second confinement on the island.

The exam table in the morgue. Note that this was not the autopsy table, which would have been a single-piece lipped table with sluices for the blood to drain. Sadly, this artifact was removed from the island in late 2008.

Lightning struck the larger smokestack in the 1990s, obliterating several feet of heavy bricks. Here, a number of these bricks have destroyed the roof of the morgue/pathology building.

A view of the physical plant (left) and coal house (right) from the roof of the morgue. In the distance, the maintenance building and the top of the nurses' residence are visible.

North Brother Island was remarkably self-sufficient; while it required that food and water be brought in, the former by ferry and the latter by pipeline, it was able to provide steam, electricity, and eventually, an internal telephone system and electrical fire alarm system. The physical plant contained all of the necessary machinery to power the island via coal, which was stored in a large building to the south of the plant. A separate ferry dock was built specifically for the quick importation of coal to the island.

The interior of the coal house, facing east.

A 1,000 lb scale in between the coal house and physical plant, presumably used to weigh coal.

The main building of the physical plant in winter.

A west-facing view of the interior of the physical plant; at the end are the southernmost boilers.

The northernmost boilers, two stories tall.

For Quarantine Alone

Island quarantine hospitals were a fairly common phenomenon in the 19th century through the middle of the 20th, and on the tip of Long Island, the US Government’s only quarantine facility for animal disease is still in operation on Plum Island. This usage makes sense – access to and from the island could be controlled, escape would be difficult, and it was correctly thought that the sources of contagion would not naturally pass over a body of water. Blackwell’s Island, later Welfare Island and now Roosevelt Island, housed a quarantine hospital known as Riverside, as well as the municipal insane asylum and other city facilities. Riverside Hospital, a smallpox hospital still partially extant and known as the Renwick Ruins after its architect, was overcrowded by the 1870s, and so a plan was put in place to build a new island hospital specifically for the quarantine of contagious disease.

Contrary to a persistent urban legend involving a Catholic orphanage or nunnery, North Brother Island was almost completely undeveloped when work began on it in the 1880s. The only structure present on the island when work began was a small shack. In 1885, the first patients were received at the second incarnation of Riverside Hospital. Various pavilions and tents were hastily constructed to segregate different diseases; smallpox, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, typhoid, diptheria, and even leprosy were demarcated on the island. The architecture was bland and utilitarian, and the treatment methodologies were primitive, but for the time being, the overcrowding on Blackwell’s Island was no longer an issue.

Other issues soon arose, however. It was difficult to find physicians willing to work shifts on the island, and at various times, the island might have been entirely without a true doctor – nurses would have to make do with what knowledge they had. Conditions on the island were rather dreadful. The early incarnation of the physical plant was not powerful enough to counter a bad winter, and thus the heat was rationed out; consequentially, death rates rose dramatically in the colder months. At various times, when weather did not permit the ferries to run, there were food shortages.

These issues, of course, were nonissues for the well-to-do, who could afford private care and thus would never set foot on the island. The indigent and immigrant populations, however, developed a healthy – but counterproductive – fear of the island. Because few came back from North Brother, and those that did told of deplorable conditions, many hid the fact that they were ill, and thus continued to act as vectors (infecting agents) for various contagions. Robert Martin, a merchant treated on the island, remarked that “the experience while there can be compared to the Black Hole of Calcutta” – this only 16 years after the facility opened. Thus, in 1902, the city began a campaign to change both the operation and the image of North Brother. Visitations were allowed, within reason, whereas previously they had been forbidden. Concrete and masonry pavilions replaced shoddy wooden buildings and tents. Doctors were available now at all times, and the nursing staff was bolstered. A telephone system was put into place, and connected with the City telephone system, allowing patients to have contact with relatives. Although the fear of the island was not eradicated, it was somewhat abated by these measures.

By 1914, the island primarily functioned to treat tuberculosis and venereal diseases. Smallpox had been eradicated in the United States by the late 1890s, and most other contagious diseases were treatable to the point that they could be handled by hospitals within the Boroughs. Tuberculosis, however, was still not well understood, and a great deal of stigma was attached to the illness. Thus, Riverside would be one of several island facilities in New York to treat the disease from the safe position of quarantine. Seaview Hospital on Staten Island, and buildings on Swinburne and Hoffman islands, would also provide quarantine facilities for the City. Treatment of tuberculosis would be the primary goal of North Brother Island between 1915 and its first closure in 1942.

Doctors' Cottage & Nurses' Residence

The western facade of the doctors' cottage, the interior of which is largely collapsed. The utilitarian municipal architecture has some nice flourishes, such as the third-floor dormers and romanesque entryway.

Second floor of the doctors' cottage, looking south into the collapsed western wing of the building.

A remarkably undisturbed room on the third floor of the southern wing of the building.

Although the wall of this bathroom floor has fallen away, the tub is still securely in place.

The pathway in between the doctors' cottage to the left, and the nurses' residence to the right.

The nurses' residence after a snowfall. Construction on this building was finished around 1904.

Main stairwell inside the western (middle) wing of the U-shaped nurses' building.

A typical two-room dorm inside the nurses' residence. One half provided sleeping quarters for 1 or 2 nurses, and the other half was a lounge area, with a private sink.

A sink and shelving unit which was a standard fixture in each quarters.

Each quarters has a knocker with a nameplate and room designation. This is room 212 in the north wing.

The courtyard in the middle of the residence, with a wraparound porch.

An iron spiral staircase on the eastern tip of the southern wing. This room was originally a screened-in porch.

A raptor found dessicated in one of the dormitories. North Brother Island has few food sources for land animals, but maintains a diverse population of birds.

The fourth-floor south hallway has suffered significant water damage, and will soon be impassible.

A room at the western tip of the southern wing contains an exam table.

The fourth floor landing of the southern staircase.

The southern facade of the building is completely covered in climbing vines such as kudzu. This invasive species, not native to the area, is threatening the trees and the heron population, as well as impacting the structural stability of the buildings.

A tennis court, across the road from the nurses' residence, dates back at least to the 1920s.

The General Slocum

In 1904, in one of the most catastrophic maritime events in US history, the PS General Slocum, a steamer built just over a decade previous, caught fire in the East River, eventually beaching on North Brother Island. Over a thousand people lost their lives in the disaster, which had a number of disparate causes.

The General Slocum was a passenger transport, and on June 14, 1904, it had been chartered by a church group consisting primarily of women and children for a picnic trip to Long Island. Shortly after disembarking, a fire broke out in one of the machine rooms. A young boy attempted to warn the ship’s crew, but he was ignored. It was fully 10 minutes after the fire started that the captain became aware of it. Instead of beaching the ship immediately, the captain continued on course, straight into the headwinds which were fanning the flames. The ship went up like tinder.

Poor maintenance on board the ship left it without any effective firefighting measures, and the manufacturer of the life preservers had cut costs, rendering them effectively useless – there are reports of mothers strapping their children in and tossing them into the water, only to watch in horror as the jackets bore the children under. The captain eventually beached the ship on North Brother Island; by this point, over 80% of the passengers and crew had died by fire or by drowning. The captain himself jumped ship and got on to the first available lifeboat; he was eventually convicted of criminal negligence and spent 3 years in Sing Sing. For hours after the tragedy, bodies continued to wash up on the shore of North Brother Island, and a number of photographs exist of the beach strewn with victims.

"Typhoid" Mary Mallon

The notion of a healthy carrier – a person who acts as a vector for a disease whilst remaining entirely or predominantly asymptomatic – is commonplace in the world of modern medicine. This was not the case a century ago, however, and this perhaps explains the strange and tragic case of Mary Mallon, known the world over as Typhoid Mary. An Irish immigrant who was likely a lifelong carrier of typhoid - her mother had suffered from the disease during the pregnancy - Mary herself never exhibited symptoms. And it was only by chance – and by the clever deductions of physician George Soper – that she was identified as a carrier, the first known case in history. Her own refusal to acknowledge this fact led to two involuntary stays on North Brother Island; the first would last from 1907 to 1910, and the second would last from 1915 until her death in 1938.

Mary was a cook by trade; she worked for a number of families in New York and out on Long Island. Several of these families were mysteriously stricken with typhoid fever over the seven year period she was active, between 1900 and 1907. Soper realized that a previously unknown factor could be at work – Mary could be spreading the bacteria without falling ill herself. When she was approached with this possibility, Mary grew defensive and angry; from her point of view, it didn’t make sense that she could spread the contagion yet not be sick herself.

In 1907, Soper published his research nonetheless, and Mary was seized by the city police and exiled to North Brother Island. Still convinced that she could not possibly be transmitting the disease, she fought for three years to be allowed back to the mainland. Finally, in 1910, she agreed to a proposal by the New York City Health Department that she would not work as a cook, and that she would take all possible hygienic measures to ensure no further cases could be attributed to her. She was allowed to depart North Brother in February of that year.

But she remained unconvinced that she was a vector for the bacterium, and continued her generally unhygienic practices. When she found her salary as a laundress to be significantly lower than what she had made as a cook, she took the pseudonym Mary Brown and began working as a cook in a hospital. Due to her generally poor sanitary habits, she quickly caused another outbreak at the hospital, which infected two dozen people, killing one. City health officials quickly tracked her down, and she was returned to North Brother, this time for the remainder of her life – over two decades on 20 acres of land. She had her own cottage, and eventually began socializing in the Nurses’ Residence and working in the pathology lab (both pictured above). In 1938, Mary died of a stroke. Her cottage was bulldozed, being cluttered and unsanitary to the point that people were afraid to enter the structure. Live typhoid cultures were found during her autopsy.

Auxiliary Buildings

A former childrens' ward was converted to a library when Riverside became a rehabilitation hospital.

The maintenance building contains general odds and ends; here, some keys sit next to a chemical stalagmite.

An old phonebook in the maintenance building is still relatively intact.

Before abandonment of the island, the altarpiece from the chapel was removed to the maintenance building, where it still sits on a table.

The second chapel, made of wood, has almost completely collapsed; all that remains standing is the wall and entryway to the west.

A great deal of infrastructure remains on the island. Lampposts, telephone poles, manholes, roads with curbs, and so on all exist, although most are buried in bushes or covered in vines. Here, a fire hydrant is relatively undisturbed.

Riverside Repurposed

Riverside Hospital stopped functioning as a quarantine hospital in 1942. It was, for a short time, abandoned, before finding a brief use as housing for World War Two veterans studying at New York colleges. It was serviced by two ferries that would regularly stop at the western slip, but this use proved inefficient and expensive, and when cheaper housing was obtained, the island was once again abandoned. In 1952, it would reopen under the final incarnation of Riverside Hospital – as an experimental juvenile drug treatment facility offered as an alternative to incarceration.

It is interesting to note that the tuberculosis pavilion, built in 1941, was never in fact used to treat tubercular patients. The island was abandoned, and all patients suffering from this disease were moved to alternate municipal facilities. The TB hospital found its first use as a dormitory, and then became the main residence and treatment building for Riverside Hospital’s drug treatment program. The doors to many of the rooms were retrofitted into seclusion rooms with sheet metal reinforcement and heavy deadbolts; these rooms are iconic in discussing the failed experiment in drug treatment undertaken on North Brother, as they spoke to the initial withdrawal management.

A patient, newly arrived at Riverside Hospital and addicted to heroin, would be placed in one of these rooms with no conveniences except for a bare mattress and a mess bucket. They would be forced to undergo withdrawal in the seclusion room without any palliatives; medicine was only given in situations deemed to be life-threatening. After several days, when withdrawal was complete, the patient would be introduced into the general population.

It was believed that this harsh return to reality, followed up by a stay of no less than 90 days on the island, and bolstered by athletics and education, would provide the best chance against relapse. To this end, all of the buildings on the island were remade; the services building became the school, the nurses’ residence became the girls’ dormitory, and the tuberculosis pavilion became the admissions hospital and boys’ residence. The building next to the TB pavilion – originally a childrens’ ward – was remade into a library and annex to the school.

The optimism of the founders of this new program was quickly shattered, however. Recidivism rates were extremely high, and even within a militaristic island hospital designed with quarantine in mind, patients were still finding means of obtaining and using drugs within the hospital. There are accounts of boyfriends making the trip across the Hell Gate in order to visit in the middle of the night; accounts of orderlies getting paid in cigarettes to smuggle heroin on the ferries; accounts of physical and sexual abuse on and by patients. Official literature from the last few years of the program reads as more and more desperate; meanwhile, the city prepared to shutter Riverside entirely. In 1963, the island was abandoned for the third and final time.

Tuberculosis Pavilion & School

The front of the 1941 tuberculosis pavilion.

A reception area in the central administrative portion of the pavilion.

A hallway inside the pavilion.

An x-ray room within the first floor medical wing of the pavilion. To the right is the control room. The tiles here have fallen away to reveal walls lined with integral lead blocks.

The remains of one of the x-ray apparati.

An airy dayroom at the end of the south wing speaks to the pavilion's original purpose as a ward for TB patients.

The building features two of these large bathtubs.

The utilitarian main stairwell in the center of the building.

A view down the southern stairwell.

The exterior of one of the seclusion rooms. This is the only such room which does not have an extra layer of sheet metal over the door.

The deadbolts were retrofitted when the hospital was repurposed as a rehabilitation facility. This seclusion room door has two locks to ensure that even the strongest patient cannot escape, and is reinforced with sheet metal.

The interior of a seclusion room. A heavy mesh screen, added after the initial construction, protects the windows from the withdrawing patient. A window provides a view into the room from the nurses' station, so that the patient is visible at all times during their withdrawal.

A chain and lock secure the screen that bars access to the windows.

Several murals are still visible on the second floor, although most of them have been punched through, presumably by vandals in the 1970s when it was popular to sneak onto the island by boat.

On one of the murals, a patient has written a vulgar poem expressing his feelings about the institution.

Originally designated the "Services Building", this building was referred to as the "School" after the hospital reopened in 1952.

While being altered to function as a school, shoddy construction techniques were employed for the partitioning. Here, the main hallway is askew under the weight of the metal beams in the wall.

The principal's office; here, the door is helping to stop the wall from falling over further.

The auditorium boasted a number of seats and a small stage.

The gymnasium, built in the hopes that athleticism could help overcome addiction.

The lavatory behind the basketball backboard. This area has suffered significant water damage.

Although most of the schoolrooms have been stripped bare, this printing press remains.

The window has fallen out of the wall in this science classroom.

Coda

Riverside Hospital, in each of its incarnations and with its shifting goals, was always an optimistic undertaking with underwhelming results. The cost of running a quarantine hospital on an island, along with advances in medicine and poor living conditions, outmoded the facility to the point that it closed. In its later life, it was a valiant attempt by some high-minded individuals to treat another societal ill, that of drug abuse. But once again, poor conditions and institutionalized corruption led to its closure. In both cases, the patients were generally poor, and generally confined to the island against their will, though in both cases their confinement was supposed to be for the greater good of society. This sentiment seems fitting:

Found on the wall in one of the seclusion rooms in the TB pavilion, it was certainly the writing of one of the youthful drug offenders in the last months of Riverside’s functioning. But it could just as easily have been written 78 years earlier, by an immigrant confined for displaying signs of diptheria just as the hospital opened, or perhaps in the 1930s by Mary Mallon. The one thing uniting almost all patients in the various versions of Riverside that existed is that they did not wish to be there; they were being treated for socially stigmatized diseases and disorders, by a society that kept them against their will. Whether the end result was positive or negative is a question for history to decide.

Today, North Brother Island looks more or less as seen in the photographs shown here, and in some cases, worse. There are no plans to rehabilitate the buildings or reuse the island; it will remain under the jurisdiction of the New York City Parks Department, and will remain a bird sanctuary. In another year or two, the fourth floor of the nurses’ residence will be inaccessible. It won’t be long before the doctors’ cottage finishes falling in upon itself, much as the lighthouse and chapel have already done. The TB pavilion, constructed with more modern techniques and materials, will be around a good while longer. Meanwhile, the pundits can debate whether or not the island has accomplished more good or ill for society; one thing that is beyond debate is the fact that the island has a unique and fascinating history, and one that should not be forgotten.

The gantry crane at sunset; a rainbow behind a cloud gives the appearance of a second sun.

I would ask anybody with a personal connection to the island – patients, staff, the children thereof – to please email me with your story; eventually, I’d like to turn this study into a larger-scope project, and reveal more about the history of the Island.

The Victory Theatre, Holyoke, MA

2011-01-11T12:19:00.004-05:00

A view of the screen and stage from the mezzanine level.

Originally constructed as a multipurpose theatre, which featured a mix of vaudeville performances and silent films, the Victory Theatre opened its doors in 1919. It received its name from the recent victory in the First World War, and the eagle medallion at the center of the proscenium is a nod to this. The Victory Symphony Orchestra accompanied both the live shows and films from a pit in front of the shallow stage; a pipe organ was used during matinee showings.

Like many such combination spaces, it soon switched to a movie palace format with the decline of vaudeville in America. There are various reports on the seating capacity of the tiered theatre; it would appear that seating capacity around the time of the Second World War was over 2,000, but that by the 1960s, it had been reduced to around 1,700. The Victory showed MGM releases during the era in which each theatre would feature a particular studio's pictures.

Like most movie palaces, however, the Victory was doomed to declining ticket sales as multiplexes with more extensive offerings began to outpace single-screen theatres. Holyoke itself was beginning to fade, factories were closing, and the downtown area was becoming blighted; there were less and less industrial workers paying for tickets at the theatre as the town took a downturn. These two factors led to the closure of the theatre; it showed its last film in 1979.

Many attempts have been made over time to raise the funds needed to stabilize and restore the Victory, beginning shortly after its closure. Until recently, they have been largely unsuccessful. However, the property was recently purchased by the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts, a group working to restore the structure. Of the estimated $25 million required to rehabilitate the building, over $17 million has already been secured, and the future of the Victory is very optimistic - plans are in place to reopen the historic movie palace in December 2012.

Here are a few more photos of the current state of the building:

The tiered mezzanine level, featuring Brazilian mahogany panelling.

The projection room, while trashed by scrappers and vandals, still shows signs of its previous life. A Newsweek magazine from the mid-70s was sitting atop one of the projector bases.

A disjointed basement attached to the mens' lounge led to a mens' restroom.

The interior detailing of the theatre is remarkably intact, but there is certainly water damage. Here, some of the plasterwork has collapsed, revealing its wooden skeleton.

The eagle in the center of the proscenium signified the World War One victory that gave the theatre its name.

"Negative Space" Prints Now Available

2010-11-29T11:01:00.017-05:00

Some of the images displayed at the opening of Negative Space in May.

Following a successful gallery run this summer, I am now offering prints from my traveling show, Negative Space, for sale on the Kingston Lounge. In all, 30 limited edition prints, as well as 6 uniquely framed prints from North Brother Island, are currently available, and these as well as other images are available in unlimited editions at 8"x12" for $95. The limited editions are offered at a set size and will never be printed at sizes above 8"x12" again. Each photograph is a signed and numbered archival-quality C-print on Kodak Endura paper. Please email me at kingston.lounge@gmail.com if interested in purchasing one.

20"x30" Prints

Patient bed in fire-damaged ward
Buffalo State Hospital, Buffalo, NY 2008
Edition of 5

Hospital room with private bathroom
Brooklyn Navy Yard Hospital, Brooklyn, NY 2009
Edition of 5

Chair in patient bedroom, shot by moonlight
Taunton State Hospital, Taunton, MA 2006
Edition of 5

View through window in door of seclusion room
Middletown State Hospital, Middletown, NY 2007
Edition of 5

16"x24" Prints

Peeling paint in fire-damaged ward
Buffalo State Hospital, Buffalo, NY 2008
Edition of 10

Overgrown security window in patient bedroom
Central State Hospital, Milledgeville, GA 2008
Edition of 10

Attic of administrative wing of Babcock Building
South Carolina State Hospital, Columbia, SC 2008
Edition of 10

Ice stalagmites under clinic building
Greystone Park State Hospital, Morris Plains, NJ 2007
Edition of 10

Easy chairs and patient art
Creedmoor State Hospital, Queens, NY 2008
Edition of 10

Patient bowling alley
Rockland State Hospital, Orangeburg, NY 2007
Edition of 10

View from mezzanine level
Loew's Kings Wonder Theatre, Brooklyn, NY 2010
Edition of 10

Mezzanine aisle leading to lobby
Loew's Kings Wonder Theatre, Brooklyn, NY 2010
Edition of 10

Lounge area
Hotel Columbia, Sharon Springs, NY 2010
Edition of 10

Grand stairwell
Empire Hotel, Sharon Springs, NY 2010
Edition of 10

Tea room
Hotel Adler, Sharon Springs, NY 2010
Edition of 10

Blue door
Central State Hospital, Milledgevile, GA 2008
Edition of 10

Sink in collapsing bathroom
Central State Hospital, Milledgevile, GA 2008
Edition of 10

Patient dormitory in main building during winter
Greystone Park State Hospital, Morris Plains, NJ 2009
Edition of 10

Morgue
Quarantine Hospital, Ellis Island, NY 2008
Edition of 10

Statue of Liberty as seen from measles ward
Quarantine Hospital, Ellis Island, NY 2008
Edition of 10

12"x18" Prints

Top of grand stairwell at first light
Brooklyn Navy Yard Hospital, Brooklyn, NY 2008
Edition of 20

Patient dormitory at sundown
Buffalo State Hospital, Buffalo, NY 2008
Edition of 15

Connector hallway between ward pavilions
Buffalo State Hospital, Buffalo, NY 2008
Edition of 15

Arch in main building
Greystone Park State Hospital, Morris Plains, NJ 2009
Edition of 15

Corridor in ward for violent patients
Greystone Park State Hospital, Morris Plains, NJ 2009
Edition of 15

Dormitory in asylum for women
Pavilion building, Hart Island, NY 2008
Edition of 15

Southern staircase
Admirals' Row, Quarters B, Brooklyn, NY 2008
Edition of 15

View of hallway and patient bathroom
Central State Hospital, Milledgeville, GA 2008
Edition of 15

Cast iron staircase
Buffalo State Hospital, Buffalo, NY 2008
Edition of 15

Patient bedroom with red curtain
Athens State Hospital, Athens, OH 2008
Edition of 15

North Brother Island Prints

Prints from North Brother Island in unique artifact frames.

In 2008 I salvaged six oxidized copper X-ray holders dating to the late 1930s from the tuberculosis pavilion on North Brother Island. These unique artifacts, utilized in the operatory and exam areas of the hospital, were transformed by an expert woodworker into shadowbox frames designed to hold 11"x14" prints. The frames and prints contained within are museum quality, and completely archival. UV-protective plexiglass is used as glazing for the pieces, and the wood of the frames is lined with aluminum tape, preventing any acid leakage. The prints are archival C-prints on Kodak Endura paper, hinge-mounted with gummed linen tape onto acid-free foamcore. An acid-free white mat finishes the piece, and each frame is backed with acid-free paper and galvanized hardware. Six images from the island were chosen to fill the frames, and each is being offered as a one-of-a-kind piece.

Front facade, tuberculosis pavilion 2008
Available

Spiral staircase, nurses' residence 2008
Sold

Scale between coal house and physical plant 2009
Sold

Two-story boilers in physical plant 2010
Available

Hallway in services building 2010
Available

Basketball court in services building 2010
Available

New Prints

Since the debut of "Negative Space" (and the posting of this blog entry) I have editioned two photographs that have been widely popular as unlimited editions, and have begun selecting images for my next gallery show on North Brother Island, which should debut around 2013. Here are the new limited editions:

Blue chair in womens' violent building
Norwich State Hospital, Preston, CT 2006
12x18", edition of 15

Records room
Hart Island, NY 2008
12x18", edition of 15

The following images from North Brother Island will be available as 16x24" prints in editions of 10:

The following images from North Brother Island will be available as 12x18" prints in editions of 15:

Inquiries can be made by sending me an email at kingston.lounge@gmail.com.

The Hotel Columbia, Sharon Springs, NY

2010-04-15T13:51:00.007-04:00

The first floor lounge of the Hotel Columbia.

A short walk from the Hotel Adler, its sister building in Sharon Springs, NY, stands the Hotel Columbia. Like the Adler, the Columbia primarily catered to New York City's Jewish population following the second World War. After the decline of the Borscht Belt region, much of the town catered in particular to Orthadox and Hasidic Jews; the Columbia was one of several hotels that did so, adapting all kitchen facilities to follow Kosher law, and removing the televisions from the establishment.

Unlike the Adler, the Columbia was primarily a long-term hotel; rooms were rented by the week (at an average of $140 per in 1977). Except for the tiny economy rooms on the top floor, every room came with a kitchen across the hall; guests of the hotel would be given keys to both. There was some light evening entertainment offered at the Columbia; noted Ukrainian dance musician Michael Skorr performed there for 18 consecutive summers. However, many guests would opt to head over to the Adler for the more elaborate comedy shows and vaudeville acts featured over there. Like the Adler, the Columbia shuttered its doors after the 2004 season; its fate remains in the air.

The main lobby & check-in area.

A typically narrow hallway within the building.

A standard two-bed room. The kitchen which accompanied this room is located across the hallway.

Each kitchen had two sink basins - one for meat and one for dairy, in keeping with Kosher law.

A detail of one of the kitchens.

The third story landing.

The end of one wing of the Columbia is sustaining significant water damage; a carpet of moss has grown in this third floor room.

The water damage has caused a partial ceiling collapse in this second-floor room, revealing rotting joists.

Like the Adler, many rooms in the Columbia had tacky wallpaper that must have looked dated by the 1970s, even though the hotel ran for decades after.

Most bathrooms did not include bathing facilities; there were communal baths in the center wing of the hotel.

Plenty of artifacts, like these blankets, remain, slowly moldering in this beautiful old building.

Central State Hospital, Milledgeville, GA

2009-09-18T12:14:00.007-04:00

View of a hallway and into a bathroom in the Walker Building, Central State Hospital.

Central State Hospital, formerly known as the Georgia Lunatic Asylum, the State Asylum for the Insane, and the Georgia State Sanitarium, is the oldest and largest psychiatric facility in the state. Located on a sprawling 1,750 acre campus in Milledgeville, GA, which was at the time the state capitol, the Asylum admitted its first patient in 1842. Patient population exploded rapidly, and by the 1870s overcrowding was an issue; new buildings and additions to existing buildings were rapidly constructed to deal with the ballooning need for beds. This trend continued through the 1960s, when Central briefly contended with New York's Pilgrim for the title of largest psychiatric facility in the world.

In 1884, the Walker Building was constructed for the reception of white male convalescent patients. Unlike the state-run public health facilities in the North, segregation was common in Southern asylums; at Milledgeville, the practice continued until at least the 1940s. The extent of segregation from state to state varied wildly, as did the degree of difference in quality of treatment. At some asylums and sanitoriums, white patients received treatment in airy dayrooms of sturdy buildings, whilst black patients were crowded into poorly insulated tents. Central State Hospital was somewhat more forward in its thinking; the first building for "coloured" patients was erected in 1866, albeit far from central Powell administration building. This evolved into a distinct campus of buildings for black patients. Somewhat more stark and institutional than the more ornate buildings for white patients, the remaining structures constructed for African Americans have now been repurposed as a prison.

The more ornate Walker Building, on the other hand, was abandoned around 1974, and over thirty years of disuse have not been kind to it. The heat and humidity of central Georgia have taken their toll; much of the third floor lacks a ceiling, and the walls are a tapestry of peeling paint, algae, mold, and disintegrating plaster. Foliage has grown over large portions of the building, and invaded the interior spaces. Insects and small mammals have made their homes here, as has a large coyote. Yet through all this, some aspects of grandeur remain in this venerable building, used for almost a century.

The roof gone, vines have begun to overtake this third-floor bathroom.

Third floor hallway, the roof long rotted away.

A typical patient room, with a viewing window to allow orderlies to look in on patients.

A curtain still hangs in a dark patient bedroom.

The lack of a roof creates interesting interplays of light at various times of day.

Although in somewhat better condition than the top floor, water damage and humidity have wrecked havoc on the floors below as well.

Among the few artifacts left in the building, this cabinet still contains the last patients' toothbrushes, each labeled with a surname.

Plaster has collapsed into a sink in a tiny corner bathroom.

In the violent ward hallway at the Southern end of the building, the doors were outfitted with spinning platforms that could be used to provide food to patients without opening the door.

A closeup of one such platform. A deadbolt separate from the one locking the door would keep the platform from rotating when not in use.

As the sun sets, the reflection of light off the red brick building colors the walls facing the courtyards.

A typical scene as the sun hangs low over the Walker building.

A large corner room near sundown.

Foliage is overtaking the building; here, an intact window provides a climbing point for vines which are beginning to slip into the building through the cracks.

Fort Totten Army Hospital

2009-05-27T13:56:00.005-04:00

Sadly, very little information is widely available on this hospital building within the Fort Totten landmark district near Bayside, Queens. Built in 1864, the year in which the primary purpose of the Fort shifted from defense of the mouth of the East River to casualty support and hospital care, the facility served the Army in various capacities until 1974, when it was emptied and abandoned. Sometime before 1920 a cafeteria annex was added to the rear of the structure; at some point prior to abandonment, the hospital appears to have been repurposed for office and administrative use, and the basement for storage.

Unfortunately, the building has fallen prey to some fairly signicant demolition-by-neglect. There is considerable water damage which has led much of the building to collapse; the parts that have not collapsed are in imminent danger, as evidenced by the mushy floors and the separation of some rooms’ floors from the load-bearing walls.

Here’s a look at the interior of the hospital. Readers with more knowledge of its history or with stories about its active use are heartily encouraged to comment below.

An operating room, the floor half-gone.

Retrofitted fluorescent lights hang akimbo from a damaged tin ceiling.

A dormitory, one of the few rooms in the building which gives a hint of the original purpose as a hospital. This room would have been lined with beds & side tables, and the outlets spaced along the walls would have provided power.

A large room on the second floor contained what was by far the most bizarre artifact found within the hospital – a child’s riding grasshopper.

Although the floor in this bathroom is completely gone, the plumbing is enough to hold these heavy porcelain sinks in place over the abyss.

The basement is full of military documents. This one-pager explains how to zero a .50 caliber machine gun.

”Battlefield Damage Assessment and Repair for Combat Vehicles”

Surprisingly, the attic was among the most intact sections of the hospital.

A typical attic room showing water damage.

The other side of the door to this room bore the name of a military officer in fading paint.

On the interior side of the door, one of the few artifacts remaining in this building – a fading photo of an Army marching band.

Taken in conjunction with the Pasilalinic-Sympathetic Compass.

Happy Birthday!

2009-02-28T15:07:00.016-05:00

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the first post on this blog, and what a year it has been! I'd like to thank you, my readers. It is truly gratifying to have received tens of thousands of hits over the last year. At this point in time, the Lounge averages hundreds of hits a day, and many of these are repeat visitors.

I endeavor to capture the structures presented in this blog as best I can in order to create a permanent record of their existence, and their grandeur. Many will not be around in a decade's time. They sure don't make 'em like they used to; that buildings like these are left to rot really makes a statement about our collective myopia. The motto of this blog, a quote from my ideological father, really rings true here: "Great architecture has only two natural enemies: water, and stupid men."

In the year to come, I hope to have the time to update more regularly. I certainly have much to share; in the next few months, look for posts on several asylums, North Brother Island, and a whole slew of other historically significant buildings.

Thank you again, my readers. I wouldn't do it without you.

Cheers,
Richard

The Brooklyn Navy Yard Hospital Complex

2009-02-19T11:57:00.008-05:00

One of two grand staircases inside Naval Hospital building at daybreak.

The story of the Brooklyn Navy Yard hospital complex, historically known as the Hospital Annex and recently known as NAVSTA Brooklyn, begins in 1824 with the sale of the Schenck Farm to the secretary of the Navy. Adjacent to the Navy Yard (known then as the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard), the plot of land was envisioned as a hospital and support facility for the Yard. When first purchased, it was separated from the Yard proper by mudflats created by the Wallabout Bay; as the bay was filled in to extend the Yard, the boundary all but vanished.

Construction of the hospital facilities began in earnest in 1830; the main hospital building was completed in 1838. By 1850, the Annex was a self-contained parcel of land, walled-in, with a gatehouse, a laboratory, and a cemetery. In 1864, the Surgeon's Residence was constructed. During the Civil War, the hospital would supply over one third of the medicines used by Union troops, and the basement of the main hospital building would be used to confine and treat wounded Confederate prisoners. During this period, more space was needed, and needed quickly, and a wooden annex was added to the main hospital building. This allowed hundreds of additional beds in the facility; over 500 patients could be treated at once.

A map of the Hospital Annex during the Civil War. Note the annex attached to the rear of the originally C-shaped main building.

The Hospital Annex would serve the Navy through several more wars, providing care facilities, research, and medicine production. During the Second World War, the hospital was overburdened (treating over 4,700 patients in six months during the height of combat), and so after the war, in 1948, the Hospital Annex was decommissioned, with its functions transferred to the much larger Naval Hospital at St. Albans, Queens. Over the next forty years, substantial demolition would occur at the complex, leaving just over 30 buildings still standing.

In 1966, the Navy Yard was decommissioned. However, the Annex would remain in the hands of the Navy as NAVSTA Brooklyn, a support and administration facility. Many of the remaining buildings were transformed into quarters and offices for enlisted men and officers alike. The main hospital building would remain in abandonment. In 1989, the Navy disposed of NAVSTA Brooklyn. On their way out, they stabilized and abated the main hospital building and the Surgeon's Residence, both New York City landmarks. Since 1993, the property has belonged to the Brooklyn Navy Yard; recently, however, Steiner Studios has purchased the complex in order to expand their studio space. There are high hopes that, at the very least, some of the buildings (including the two landmarks) will receive new life.

Here is a look into a few of the buildings on this historic campus.

Building R95

Constructed 1830-1838
Original designation: Naval Hospital
Final designation: Naval Hospital

The main hospital building is truly a sight to behold. The superstructure, over 170 years old, is in remarkably good condition. Because of stabilization and abatement, the entire interior is whitewashed, leaving the place eerily monochromatic except when the prevailing daylight happens to paint color onto the walls.

The rising sun shines through a hole made in one of the boards to create negative pressure during abatement, creating a wash of orange on the walls.

Early morning light adds a yellow cast to some of the rooms. It is very dark inside the hospital, since most of the windows are boarded.

The hallway leading to the Northern grand stairwell.

The building was stabilized in 1989; while the stabilization has been largely successful, and there is little sign of imminent collapse, there has been some shifting. Hopefully, Steiner will quickly invest in re-stabilizing the building and patching the holes in the roof; water damage is becoming evident in a couple of areas.

The stabilized Northern stairwell.

A view up the stairwell showing stabilization beams.

The rooms have all been emptied of artifacts and abated; whitewash covers everything within, encapsulating the lead paint.

The light peeking in through a crack in a board creates a blue cast in this room. Photographing this hospital can be difficult - this was a 6.5 minute long exposure.

Most of the original lighting fixtures in the hospital were replaced by fluorescent fixtures as they came into vogue.

Hallway near the Southern stairwell; the original milk glass fixtures remain in place.

A typical patient room, illuminated by early morning light.

Nearly everything in the hospital - down to the radiators and light switches - was whitewashed. This is one of the few rooms where color is still visible beneath the white.

Even the doorknobs were whitewashed.

A typical dark room; the window being completely boarded over, the only light comes from the room across the hall.

Most rooms had fireplaces; many were removed and bricked over, presumably when it became illegal to use fireplaces in the Boroughs.

The central portion of the hospital, used for reception and internal functions. The hallways contain 18 foot high columns.

A breaker box in the basement allows the construction lights throughout the building to be turned on.

The rear of R95.

Building R1

Constructed 1864
Original designation: Surgeon's Residence
Final designation: Commandant's Residence

The beautiful French Second Empire styled Surgeon's Residence, with an elegant concave mansard roof, has been admirably preserved by the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation. Showing little sign of deterioration whatsoever, its interior details are remarkably intact.

The view from the main entrance to the residence.

The living room, with a view across the hall into the parlor.

The second floor hallway as seen from the landing.

Another view of this hallway.

Building RG

Constructed 1919
Original designation: Nurses Quarters
Final designation: Bachelor Officers' Quarters

This building, comprised of a central section and two perpendicular wings, was of a much more utilitarian construction than earlier buildings, and was heavily renovated when the campus became the NAVSTA Brooklyn support facility.

The main lobby, with stairs leading down to the Offficers' Bar and up to each wing.

What remains of the Officers' Bar.

Building RD

Constructed 1910
Original designation: Laboratory
Final designation: Bachelor Enlisted Quarters

Nearly pitch-black on the first two floors, the distinguishing feature of the old laboratory building are the extensive (and intact) skylights on the top floor. This would provide abundant natural light for surgeries and examinations.

The Samuel R. Smith Infirmary

2009-01-26T11:12:00.008-05:00

The current state Samuel R. Smith Infirmary building tells a sad story which highlights the failures of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, as well as the generally sad state of historic preservation in general.

In 1861, a one-room infirmary was founded on Staten Island. It was the first private hospital on the island; the population at the time was 25,000. The infirmary was named in honor of Samuel R. Smith, a prominent local doctor who was heavily involved in charity care for the poor. Over the next few decades, the infirmary would move several times, occupying successively larger structures in order to be able to care for more patients. In 1870, it moved into the late Dr. Smith's former residence.

After years of fundraising, in the late 1880s enough money was raised to build a new structure on Castleton Avenue. Alfred E. Barlow was chosen as architect. He designed the new castle-styled building according to prevailing treatment modalities of the day, with all four corners occupied by rounded towers. This was thought to cut down on the spread of disease. In 1890, the infirmary moved from Dr. Smith's house to this new building, which was opened with some great fanfare.

In 1917, the Infirmary was renamed The Staten Island Hospital, a nod to the fact that it served all of the island. For decades, the campus would expand, adding several new pavilions, nurses' quarters, a physical plant, and other buildings. Then in 1979, the hospital abandoned the campus, moving into a brand-new, state of the art facility on Seaview Avenue. Thus began the decline of the gorgeous Barlow-designed infirmary building.

In 1983, the Landmarks Preservation Committee considered the infirmary for landmark status. Nothing ever came of the discussion, and over the next several years, alternate development plans were floated, some of which would maintain the character of the building, some of which would not. Work was even begun on turning one of the other buildings on the campus, a six-story brick structure, into a condo complex. This was shortly halted, and the entire campus started to fall into ruin. The infirmary building had been gutted, leaving very little of the interior character intact, but no motions had been made to stabilize it.

Over the next twenty-five years, the infirmary became prey to the whims of graffiti vandals, arsonists, and perhaps worst of all, the elements. Token efforts were made to stabilize parts of the building and to seal it against intruders, but these were not terribly successful. Today, the infirmary is in terrible shape. Most walls are covered with tags, and garbage is strewn about. Huge gaps in the roof allows water to invade, and floors are collapsing. The only interior details which remain intact are sections of the ornate pressed-tin ceiling, and the gorgeous cast-iron staircase.

It is sad to see the noble notion of preservation fail as badly as it has here, and the LPC is at least partly to blame. Because of their 1983 deliberations, which did not achieve anything, they are unwilling to consider the building at present. The property owners have been negligent; with no legislative prod forcing them to maintain the building, it is quickly falling into ruin. Whether it can be saved now is anybody's guess. Sadly, I'm guessing that it will either be demolished by the hand of man, or just left to demolition by neglect.

Here's a peek at what it looks like today.

The grand iron staircase, first floor. Note the remaining pieces of tin ceiling still attached.

Detail of one of the cast iron columns supporting the staircase.

Staircase as seen from the second floor landing. Note the wooden finials on the banister, still very much intact.

A half-collapsed room in one of the rounded corners. The beams on the far side of the room show signs of fire damage.

A smaller staircase leads up to the attic.

The attic. The floor is caved in throughout much of it, and the superstructure of the building is literally collapsing in upon itself.

Even despite the graffiti and water damage, the grandeur of the whalebone arching in this lofty attic is quite evident.

The first floor lobby. Even gutted and ravaged by water and vandals, the beauty of the building shows through in subtle ways.

Buffalo State Hospital - the H. H. Richardson Complex

2008-09-18T09:15:00.008-04:00

In stark contrast to the majority of locations featured on this blog, the H. H. Richardson Complex, a grand Kirkbride building in Buffalo, NY, is not in danger of being demolished or left to rot. A National Historic Landmark, the building is currently being stabilized and has recently been secured against intruders. Better still, budget is already in place in order to restore the gorgeous Romanesque building to her former glory. The Richardson Center Corporation is overseeing the restoration.

Buffalo State Hospital's original main building complex features a central Administrative building crowned by two 185-foot-tall towers, copper roofed with dormer windows. The masonry is of red medina sandstone, and is one of the earliest examples of H. H. Richardson's trademark style, Richarsonian Romanesque. The central Administrative building is flanked on either side by two sandstone ward pavilions, connected by curved connector hallways. These hallways served a dual purpose - their curvature made it impossible to place beds in the connector hallways, which was a common practice at overcrowded hospitals of the era. At the same time, it allowed a greater level of supervision, as doctors and nurses could easily traverse the entire length of the complex, while orderlies and patients could be confined to a single ward. This notion conformed to the hospital hierarchy of the day, and was touted by John P. Gray, superintendent of Utica State Hospital and an adviser to Richardson, as one of the innovative features of the Buffalo asylum's design.

Hallway of the innermost brick ward, second floor.

The original plan for the hospital was to build the remaining ward pavilions - a total of five on each side - in the same sandstone. However, the outer three wards on either side (the pavilions to the west were for female patients, and those to the right for male) were constructed of brick when the budget fell short. The wards were constructed en echelon; the Administration building had four stories, and on either side, the next two wards had three stories, the following two had two stories, and the final ward (reserved for violent patients) had a single story. In the 1960s, the Male brick wards were demolished in order to build an ugly, utilitarian modern building for the psych center.

A dormitory at the end of the second story of the inner brick ward.

A cast iron stairway in the brick wards. The stairs in the sandstone wards have a higher degree of ornamentation.

The first floor hallway of the center brick ward. This floor contains dozens of discarded wheelchairs.

The top floor of the connector hallway between the two sandstone pavilions.

A door on the second floor of the brick wards. Note that there is a mesh window for the orderlies to look in upon the patients. Like most of the hardware in the hospital, the doorknob is missing.

View of the violent ward of the Female Wing from the attic of the center brick ward. The violent wards were a single story tall, and their footprint was very different from that of the rest of the hosptial.

One feature of the Buffalo State Hospital Kirkbride which differentiates it greatly from many other Kirkbride buildings is the single-loaded main corridors. More expensive from a construction perspective, the southern-facing windows in these corridors provided a maximal amount of light, which was in keeping with Dr. Kirkbride's Moral Treatment plan. Each main corridor is bisected with a smaller corridor to the north, each of which was double-loaded. Bathroom and shower facilities, as well as coatrooms and storage, were placed in these extensions. The footprint of the Topeka State Hospital (now mostly demolished) appears to have been based upon this design.

Another brick ward hallway.

Ornate fireplace in the Administration building.

The majority of the complex is in remarkably good shape, especially considering its long abandonment. The most significant damage is to the hallway connecting the inner and center brick wards. In order to get from one to the next, one must carefully pass over a "bridge" of swaying, uncollapsed floor.

At some point between 2004 and 2008, someone placed a radiator grill over the collapse bridge.

Two geriatric chairs in a corner of a dayroom in the sandstone wards.

A coatroom in the brick wards.

Some medical equipment remains in the pitch-black depths of the single-story violent ward. The EEG machine in the background was manufactured by Medcraft, the same company which designed the B-24 Glissando ECT machine, the standard in electroshock therapy from the 50s through the 70s.

Shower stalls with privacy walls in the sandstone wards. In many similar hospitals, the showers would be communal, with no such walls in place. Here there are walls, but no doors - ensuring that the orderlies could keep a watch on patients even as they could not view each other.

Hallway in the sandstone wards. Note the brightness here as a result of the 12-foot-tall windows in the single-loaded corridor.

An original sandstone fireplace featuring a medieval "Green Beast" motif. Sadly, at some point this particular example was painted over in the ward colors of the time.

Detail from an unpainted "Green Beast" fireplace.

At some point, while the sprinkler system was still functional, a fire broke out in one of the patient rooms on the outer sandstone ward. The result is that the smoke clung to the upper reaches of the walls until the sprinklers kicked in, causing the soot to run down. The result is actually rather stunning, although certainly nearly disastrous. Fortunately, the structural damage is minimal - the room in which the fire originated is fairly charred, but outside of that, no serious damage was done.

Soot runs down the walls, the paint now peeling.

A patient's bed in the fire-damaged ward.

The sprinklers did not kick in here, and the heavy soot near the 16-foot-high ceiling is evidence of the amount of smoke generated in the fire.

Sunset through the windows in a dormitory inside the fire-damaged ward.

Sunset inside a solarium which was later converted to a dormitory. Note the 16-foot ceilings and the ornamental pillars.

The twin towers after dark.

For another perspective on this rare architectural treasure, visit the Pasilalinic-Sympathetic Compass.

ADDENDUM, 8/22/08

Monica Pelligrino Faix, Project Coordinator for the Richardson Center Corporation, has sent me the following official statement to post up on the Kingston Lounge:

The Richardson Center Corporation is working on the rehabilitation of the Richardson Olmsted Complex. Future plans envision public access to the Complex, although the organization cannot do so at this time because the buildings remain the property of the NYS Office of Mental Health. This board is undertaking a monumental task to stabilize and secure the buildings for future uses. One use will be an Architecture and Visitor Center for Buffalo and the region; planning for the remaining uses are underway as part of the master plan process being led by Chan Krieger Sieniewicz. Part of the long term plan for public access and reuse is to protect the buildings from vandalism, and therefore security patrols and closing up the buildings have increased. Please feel free to contact me directly at monica@richardson-olmsted.com, or visit our website, www.richardson-olmsted.com, for updates on our progress

I would urge my readers to remember that the Richardson Complex is actively being preserved, and that significant activity is already underway to ensure that these wonderful structures remain for future generations to enjoy. Anything which wastes the time or resources of the people working on the preservation efforts directly takes away from the resources available for preservation. Please enjoy the publicly accessible areas around the buildings and grounds legally and respectfully; I have no doubt that, in the not too distant future, the site will again be open for tours.

Hart Island

2008-08-29T11:23:00.010-04:00

Taken in conjunction with Marie Lorenz, who provided not only good company, but passage on her lovely hand-made boat, the Tide and Current Taxi.

There are dozens of islands in the waters around New York City, and many of them have rich and little-known histories. Perhaps the most fascinating of all of them is Hart Island, 131 acres of land just east of City Island at the western edge of Long Island Sound. Originally called "Heart Island" due to the fact that its footprint resembles the shape of the organ, the "e" was soon dropped.

Hart Island has been a prisoner of war camp a number of times; in the mid-19th century, it housed confederate POWs; in the mid-20th, it held POWs from World War 2. The island has also been home to a prison and a womens' asylum, a workhouse and NIKE missile base. But if the average person knows anything at all about Hart Island, it is likely the fact that, since 1869, the island has served as New York's sixth potter's field. Approximately 800,000 bodies are buried on the island, making it the largest publicly funded cemetery in the world.

In addition to the potter's field, which takes up the entire northern half of the island, and has now moved to the southern tip, there are a number of buildings remaining on the island.

Southern entrance to the Pavilion building.

The Pavilion building, built in 1885, was originally an insane asylum for women. It handled the overflow from the asylum on Roosevelt Island, and typically received chronic cases. In the 1970s, it saw its final use as a drug rehab facility called Phoenix House.

The dedication plaque on the Pavilion building.

Patients at Phoenix House did occupational therapy as a part of their treatment. In the Pavilion building, they worked on leather shoes. Some of the shoes are scattered about near the building; it's remarkable that in over three decades, they remain in relatively good shape.

The first floor of the Pavilion building. All evidence points to this floor having been repurposed as a combination of kitchen and dining hall.

View into one of the kitchen areas in the Pavilion building.

Second-floor landing of the northern stairwell.

The second floor of the Pavilion.

It appears as if all the shoes were piled up here when the shoemaking operations ceased.

Hart Island has a web of overgrown streets connecting the various buildings in the center of the island. A few of the roads, such as the one leading to the monuments at the north end of the island, show signs of recent use, but most have been completely abandoned along with the structures, the streetlights, and the rest of the once-bustling central portion of the island.

Attached to the physical plant is this Romanesque dynamo room, built in 1912.

Many of the smaller structures on the island were used by the Department of Corrections as records storage buildings. Today, hundreds of thousands of pages of moldering records slowly decay in these abandoned buildings.

In 1935, a new Catholic chapel was built to replace one which had, by that point, become dilapidated. The chapel is still in remarkably good shape.

The exterior of the chapel.

A view towards where the altar would have been from the mezzanine level.

The stained glass is sadly gone from this window. On the milk crate on the mezzanine, there are two grenades. Downstairs in the chapel proper, dozens of grenades are piled up in another milk crate.

Towards the southern part of the island, a small white building stands next to recent excavations. As the potter's field expands, the buildings will be demolished to make way for new graves.

The last building we visited was at the edge of the newest burial fields. Another structure that was part of the original womens' insane hospital, and repurposed to be a part of Phoenix House, this ward building was in much worse shape than the Pavilion building. The floors were ready to go in several places, and the roof had completely fallen in on significant sections of the northern part of the building.

In the courtyard between the wards to the west, there was an open burial pit in which a goose had taken residence.

Much of the second floor was collapsing. Here, the roof is making a valiant effort to fight off nature, but as always, the water has been winning the battle.

Some patient beds remain on the somewhat more intact southern side of the building.

Beneath the ward in which the patient beds were found, we came upon a room that had several empty pine boxes inside. The bags full of Tyvek suits and rubber gloves helped tell the story of the boxes - here were the former resting places of people who had been buried on Hart Island, but disinterred at the requests of their families.

(ADDENDUM: Melinda Hunt has pointed to the lack of certain specific markings on the boxes, as well as the lack of dirt, as evidence that these were not, in fact, disinterred coffins. Rather, they were coffins that were never buried. I believe her correction warrants notation on this blog.)

I might at this point mention the work of Melinda Hunt, and her Hart Island Project. Hunt has been working for years to open up the records of the people buried on Hart Island, in order that families can more easily find the graves of their kin. At the same time, she works to destigmatize the concept of mass burials; while there is a misconception that only the homeless are buried in the potter's field, this is simply not true. The majority of those buried are infants; in addition, those who cannot afford burial elsewhere often come to Hart Island, as well as anybody whom the city cannot identify within a certain time period.

On our way out of this building, we passed by one of the mass graves, apparently for adults. Since no burials were being performed on the day of our visit, the graves were covered over with plywood. A half-dozen yellow rubber gloves lay nearby. When 150 coffins fill each adult grave, they are covered over with dirt, and marked with a simple marker.

The first person buried in the potter's field was Louisa Van Slyke, a 24-year-old woman, in 1869. Since then, over three quarters of a million people have found final rest on the island. The records for most of these burials were lost in a fire.

The potter's field at Hart Island is the largest cemetery in the United States.

The Hotel Adler, Sharon Springs, NY

2008-08-19T12:53:00.006-04:00

Sharon Springs, NY, was once a bustling resort town built upon a natural mineral spring. It was thought that the high levels of sulphur, magnesium, and iron in the water provided a variety of health benefits, the exact specifications of which varied widely over the years. By the end of the 19th century, it was a highly fashionable escape from New York; patrons included the Vanderbilts and Oscar Wilde. By the time of the Depression, there were more than a dozen resort hotels operating out of the town, alongside a highly regarded golf course, a number of bath houses, and other amenities common to resorts of the era.

Among the last of these built was the Adler, which first opened its doors in 1927. Already the town was fading; Saratoga Springs was competing for, and for the most part winning, the patronage of the prestigious. Add to this the economic hardships of the Depression, which happened only a few years after the hotel was built, and the hotel was economically troubled from the beginning.

But after World War 2, the town again came into prominence, now as a getaway spot for wealthy German Jews, who were not welcomed easily at Saratoga. In 1946, Ed Koch, future mayor of New York, bussed tables at the Adler. The town was again booming, and the kitchens in all of the old resort hotels were made Kosher; in a phenomenon not unlike the Borscht Belt of lower New York, Sharon Springs became a major Jewish escape.

But the decline of resorts in general, as well as the building of the New York State Thruway, which bypassed Sharon Springs, took their toll. One by one, the resort hotels and bath houses closed; the Adler was among the last to shut its doors, in 2004. Since then, little has changed there - the occasional vandal has sadly snuck in, and there is graffiti vandalism throughout various areas of the hotel, including the grand dining room. But things are looking up for the hotel - unlike other notable Sharon Springs hotels, such as the Pavilion and the Washington, it was not demolished; now it has been purchased by a group which plans to restore it (as well as the Imperial Baths and the Columbia Hotel) and remake Sharon Springs into a resort community once again. Hopefully, this grand five-story Spanish Revival building will once again see life.

The grand lobby of the hotel, showing some original architectural flourishes.

A bedroom, with furniture still intact. The majority of the rooms in the Adler still have beds and dressers; in some cases, ancient TVs or old telephones add another glimpse into its past.

The third floor elevator.

A pile of old mattresses. Several rooms had clearly been disused longer than the majority of the hotel; many were used to warehouse surplus items such as these.

The grand stairwell running up the center of the building.

A fifth-floor room; note the tin still intact along the sloped ceiling.

A tiny bathroom, lacking a sink, inside a closet-sized room with a skylight on the top floor.

A private dining room on the first floor.

Witte's Marine Salvage - the Staten Island boat graveyard

2008-07-28T12:51:00.004-04:00

Brian Lehrer Follow-Up - Seaview Hospital

2008-06-18T14:30:00.004-04:00

So a few people have written to me asking for a post on Seaview Hospital, more recently known as Sea View Hospital, which I spoke about during my recent appearance on Brian Lehrer Live. Unfortunately, I have not made a trip out there in some time, and have no recent photos from the womens' ward pavilions, but here are some scans of negatives shot a couple years back in the four remaining wards.

In 1905, the City of New York set aside funds in order to build an institution to combat the "white plague" of tuberculosis; a site was selected on Todt Hill on Staten Island, and Raymond F. Almirall was given the commission to design the hospital. Almirall incorporated current trends in the treatment of tuberculosis into his design, at the center of which were eight pavilions, four for men, and four for women. The pavilions were spaced in a fan-like formation in order to maximize the amount of sunlight that reached each one. They were light and airy, with most floors consisting of a double-loaded hallway leading up to a large dayroom / dormitory; ample windows all around would ensure that the curative sea air would reach the patients.

By 1909, construction had begun on the hospital. The eight ward pavilions were arranged semi-circularly around a central administrative building, and the hospital also boasted a power plant, a nurses' building, and a cafeteria, as well as a laboratory. The buildings were joined by a walkable steam tunnel system, most of which exists to this day, and some of which is still in use. In 1913, the first patients were admitted.

By 1920, the hospital was overcrowded due to an increase in infection rates; plans were drawn, and additional dormitory buildings were added. By the 1930s, the patient population topped 2,000. It was at this hospital, one of the first municipal tubercular sanatoriums in America, that doctors finally ironed out the first curative treatments for TB, the Isoniazid drugs. Their diligence would be the hospital's downfall, as the patient population rapidly declined. By the 1960s, the hospital began undergoing conversion to a geriatric facility; in the early 1970s, the ward pavilions were emptied, and in 1973 the four mens' wards were demolished. In their place rose utilitarian modern architecture. The four womens' ward pavillions were left to rot next door, slowly falling apart in the sea air.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Almirall's design are the terra cotta murals on the balconies of the top floors of the pavilions. Originally on the exteriors of the buildings, and easily visible from the next ward over, in the 1930s the murals were partially eclipsed by porches built around the balconies with little thought.

Almirall himself made the initial sketches for the murals. He wanted to provide something symbolic of the healing taking place at the hospital, while at the same time something aesthetically pleasing for the patients. What he came up with was a bevy of themed elements which fit together beautifully - on a background of gold and falling green seashells, figures of doctors and nurses with their patients are framed with shields displaying symbols of medicine, as well as symbols of the sea, wreathed in fabrics.

To translate his designs into a physical reality, Almirall enlisted Joost Thooft & Labouchere, a company in continuous operation in Delft, Holland, since 1653, originally under the name De Porceleyne Fles. The murals were created using the sectile technique, originally introduced during the 1900 Paris World's Fair. Sectile work is unique in that each piece of terra cotta was shaped to fit the lines of the design, instead of the design being divided over a number of tiles; it was used exclusively by this company from 1900 to 1910. Therefore, the murals at Sea View Hospital are a rarity, and are considered the best example of sectile work in America. Each piece was fired in a charcoal kiln, giving each a unique firing pattern; this accounts for the diversity one sees even in the gold blocks. Sadly, today the tiles are crumbling from the walls of the last four pavilions; minimal efforts have been made to save them. I sincerely hope that, at some point, what's salvageable can be preserved.

Brian Lehrer Live

2008-06-04T12:33:00.006-04:00

Last Wednesday, I had an opportunity to appear on Brian Lehrer Live alongside Kevin Walsh from Forgotten NY to talk about guerrilla preservation and, in specific, Admiral's Row and Staten Island's Seaview Hospital. Here's a video of the segment:

There are a number of things I wish I could have gone into further detail on; in particular, I had prepared some little talks on the history of the sectile technique in terra cotta, in use from 1900-1910 and of which the murals at Seaview Hospital are some of the late examples of. I was also planning on talking at length about Admiral's Row, and in particular, about recent developments with the Section 106 proceedings on the property. As I was not able to, I will post a follow-up blog in the next few days, with some more information, but in the meantime, I would like to point everybody's attention to the official Army webpage on which further information is posted.

Being my first time on TV, I was a wee bit nervous, but I think the interview went well. The hardest part was not jumping in with epithets and invectives when Kevin brought up scumbag developer Bruce Ratner; since the interview was about preservation and old buildings, I didn't want to stray too far off topic. I'll get the Seaview photos up soon; they're several years old and shot on film, so they need to be scanned and edited before being posted on the internet.

On another note, apologies to you, my readers, for the lapse in posts - I've been too busy off taking photos and studying sites to edit any or get them up on the blog. In the next few weeks, though, I plan on posting a handful of new locations in New York and beyond.

Kingston Lounge Wine & Dine Restaurant & Cocktail Lounge

2008-04-25T21:08:00.008-04:00

On the corner of Kingston & Bergen, a quiet corner in the re-awakening Brooklyn neighborhood of Weeksville, sits the Kingston Lounge. A small jazz club which opened in 1944, the "Kingston Lounge Wine & Dine Restaurant & Cocktail Lounge", as its falling marquee proclaims, was a neighborhood staple for decades. In the 1980s, it fell into decline, and soon only the apartments above were in use. By 2001, it was deserted.

During its heyday, the Kingston attracted guests from as far away as Harlem; even holding no more than 60 patrons at a time, the Lounge attracted musicians as renowned as Kenny Dorham, Randy Weston, Max Roach, Sahib Shihab & Matthew Gee. In fact, Dorham, Gee, Cecil Payne and company recorded a 1960 album under the name of The Swingers (Jazzland Records) on which the second track is entitled "Kingston Lounge", in honor of the place where they practiced and jammed out, entertaining the block until the wee hours.

Much of the older generation living in Bed-Stuy remembers the Lounge in full form. Down the block from me, I heard a story about how the parents of a middle-aged resident went on their first date there. I sat with a neighbor on the stoop and heard about amazing and inspirational shows, jam sessions that could still be heard as the neighbors woke and shuffled past in the early mornings, and the dark side of the Kingston - until the 70s, the club would not admit white patrons under any circumstances.

But that was the time, and that was New York. In the 80s, the club was repeatedly cited for health code violations; some in the neighborhood cried foul and claimed that the inspectors were trying to shut the Lounge down for no good reason. In light of history, that doesn't seem unreasonable. The upper floors were used for many years as apartments, until they too didn't make code - and the building was shuttered.

About two months after naming my blog after the institution in question, I finally had the opportunity to visit the interior of the Kingston Lounge.

Sadly, the thing most notably absent upon walking into this historic location was... history. Years ago, the vacant Lounge was purchased by a real estate prospector. It has been warehoused ever since, but either at the time of its abandonment, or (more likely) after purchase, it was stripped of most of its character. There are still mirrored panels on one wall, and the remnants of the last decorative paint job on the opposing wall - but in general, without knowing the history of the place, one wouldn't assume that it was a place where legends honed their skills, where generations of Brooklynites spent their nights soaking in carefully rehearsed tunes and hours-long impromptu jam sessions.

The upstairs is just as empty, albeit more photogenic. On the second floor, there is a bedroom soaked in deep blue paint. I continued to tour the apartments for a few minutes, but saddened by the utter dearth of historical evidence, I shortly departed. Here are the rest of the shots I took that morning - less than 10 in all.

Norwich State Hospital - Salmon (male forensic) building

2008-04-19T16:54:00.007-04:00

Salmon building (r) with Administration building to its left.

The Salmon building at Norwich State Hospital, Connecticut's second public insane asylum, founded in 1904, was a building built for male forensic patients, those found not guilty by reason of insanity. An original construction building, part of the initial footprint of the hospital campus, Salmon was a milestone in terms of the construction of psychiatric hospital buildings for the violent insane. Every window was barred with prison-style 2/3 inch thick iron bars built into the brick, as well as a heavy mesh screen. In order to move down the ward, the door ahead would only be unlocked when the one behind was closed - airlock style - which would insure that even in the event that a patient escaped his room, he wasn't going far.

In nearly 70 years of operation, not a single escape was recorded from Salmon.

Flanking the Administration building, in direct contrast with the Kirkbride plan which dictated that violent patients would be housed far from the administrators, Salmon was echoed by a female forensic unit named Awl, which was situated on the other side of the Administration building.

These photos were recently taken on a trip with Nate Kensinger and Sylvie Bolioli's Law & Disorder: The Insanity Defense.

A hallway in the Salmon building, showing the heavily fortified doors typical of the structure.

One of the bathroms in the structure. If needed, attendants could slam and lock the heavy mesh door, isolating patients who acted out whilst using the facilities.

A patient registry, into which the names of current patients would be inserted for census and tracking purposes.

A patient's room, heavily collapsed. Even after over thirty years of abandonment, this room would be difficult to escape from if the door were locked - the barred window is still holding strong.

An intact sink in one of the nurses' stations.

The wheel on the bottom of a bedframe, sunk deep into thirty years' worth of disintegrating plaster.

View from a hallway into a patient's bedroom; this is on the inner part of the ward, which would have been the most secure section of the building.

The patient's bed in room 26, still almost ready for a nap after decades of desertion. These beds were stuffed with horsehair, as were the pillows. Thanks Nate!

Creedmoor State Hospital, Building 25

2008-03-31T20:30:00.012-04:00

Queens' Creedmoor State Hospital (now Creedmoor Psychiatric Center) had its humble beginnings as the farm colony for Brooklyn State Hospital (now Kingsboro). A prevailing theme in the treatments of the period was that fresh air, a rustic environment, and hard work could help restore the faculties damaged by diseases like dementia praecox and hysteria.

So it was that in 1912, Creedmoor unofficially opened with an initial populace of 32 patients deemed curable; the farmland was worked, which in turn meant less expense for the pantries of the local state hospitals. But the overcrowding typical of public mental hospitals in the first half of this century soon took hold at Creedmoor, which was granted status as an independent psychiatric hospital, and which grew exponentially - by the 50s, there were over 8,000 patients housed in over fifty buildings, including the highrise hospital which is still in use.

But with the advent of Thorazine and similar antipsychotic medications, and the trimming of state hospital budgets (especially under Reagan), deinstitutionalization occurred. The state hospitals were emptied, and large portions of most of the campuses fell into disuse. Creedmoor was no exception. Over the last several decades, the patient population has declined from over 5,000 to under 500. Large portions of the campus were sold off.

One building that is disused but has not been sold off or demolished is Building 25. Among the oldest buildings left on the campus, it was vacated in the early 1970s, and has scarcely been revisited since - with the exception of a squatter who seems to be in it for the long haul. Anecdotally, he has been living in the building for over half a decade; his robust squat (not photographed out of concern for his privacy) would seem to confirm this. While these photos were taken, he was angrily pacing outside the building, acutely aware that his home had been invaded.

Each floor is comprised of a long hallway intersected on either end by a perpendicular wing; one half of each wing was a sunny dorm, in which dozens of patients would have had cots. The other half of each wing was a hallway full of seclusion rooms. The violent, ill-behaved, and incurable patients would live in these tiny rooms, each with a solid metal door. The main hallway connecting the wings contained, on each floor, a kitchen and dining hall, and a number of rooms used for other nonresidential purposes, from storage to lithography.

One of the main hallways which connected the wings.

A standard dorm, capable of accommodating a great number of patients.

A seclusion hallway with private rooms.

This one belonged to Mrs. B. Shaw.

Past each wing, at either end of the long hall, was a dayroom. Patients who were behaved would spend their days here, watching television or playing boardgames, engaging in group therapy or staring at the wall, numbed by powerful sedatives.

A dayroom at the Western end of the third floor.

View from another dayroom towards primary wing junction.

Here are various other scenes from the second and third floors of the hospital; the first floor is boarded off and too dark to shoot.

Two blue chairs have been torn apart by animals under a patient mural, a common sight in abandoned state hospitals.

Wheelchairs have been collected and piled up in a number of adjoining rooms on the second floor.

Layers of paint peel back from the wall.

Another seclusion hall, at the end of which is a heavy grated window typical of this hospital building.

A room on the third floor contains a pair of lithographic presses, a pair of typewriters, and a cash register.

Surprisingly, scrappers seem not to have made any attempts on the copper in this structure.

Research still sits on a desk in a doctor's study, ready to be leafed through.

The third floor cafeteria, later used for chair storage.

The fourth floor is interesting because it contains the evidence of 35+ years' worth of pigeon inhabitance. There are pigeon droppings everywhere; in places, they are knee deep due to accumulation under pigeon "hangouts" - pipes, fixtures, and other perches. It makes for a rather surreal effect, though one starts to get a headache after about 10 minutes on this floor.

Fourth floor dayroom.

Fourth floor seclusion hall.

A chair, sunken into the filth.

Fourth floor bathroom.

But above all this filth and squalor, still partially hidden behind a layer of pink paint, the Virgin Mary shines her beatific smile down upon the empty dayroom, innocently ignorant of the suffering, healing, and humanity which once graced this building.

Images from Jacques Toussaint Benoit, another local photoblogger, are available at the Pasilalinic-Sympathetic Compass.

Floyd Bennett Field: Hangars 3 & 4 Steam Plant

2008-03-18T21:52:00.007-04:00

Floyd Bennett Field was New York City's first municipal airfield; from its opening in 1931 until the unveiling of LaGuardia in 1939, it was the only one. Decommissioned in 1971, control of the field passed to the National Parks Service, for inclusion in the Gateway National Recreation Area. The hangars nearest to Flatbush Avenue, eight original hangars spread amongst four buildings, were designated a historic district, as was the original administration building.

However, the NPS has not done a very good of keeping the property up. While hangars 5-8 were adapted for reuse as a sports complex, arguably compromising their historic character, hangars 1-4 have been left to rot.

Here is a glimpse into the steam plant which powered hangars 3 & 4; notes and remnants remain which allow one to trace its use into the late 60s, at which point it was apparently decommissioned as the airfield sputtered into disuse.

Three boilers provided steam for the pair of hangars.

On the side of one of the boilers, a worker has solved a math equation.

Fuseboxes for boilers 2 and 3.

A red steam control valve sits under some asbestos insulation sloughing off a connected pipe.

Switches to control the blower, compressor, and oil pump.

A workers' log notes issues with maintenance of the burners and boilers.

Some yellow liquid remains in a glass tube attached to another steam valve.

A square pressure gauge at the head of one of the boilers.

Dead Horse Bay

2008-03-03T16:37:00.007-05:00

Yes, this is Brooklyn.

Dead Horse Bay, just west of Floyd Bennett Field, was at one point a marshland that the city of New York found to be an opportune area for a garbage dump. Some time in the 30s, this usage ceased, and the landfill was covered over with sand from Jamaica Bay; it was left alone this way for decades, in order to allow a natural beach to form.

But instead, the landfill rejected her cache - spitting relics of another time back into the ocean. And in return, the ocean bandied them about, and tossed them back to shore. This is where we wandered, over the weekend; a virgin beach marred only by the mementos of a foregone age.

A number of tires have washed up on a corner of the beach still littered with porcelain and glass.

Shoe leather wades in the currents.

A large rusty nail, still anchored into wood, provides a glimpse of a disparate shipwreck, one piece of which found the Bay.

It's not all a story of regurgitated relics. Here, the landfill beach seems almost normal; a tree has grown its roots into the dirt of ages.

A ship's prow sticks out boldly into the horizon, not minding the fact that it was forgotten a long, long time ago.

The landfill beach regurgitated these ribbons, which found their way back to the beach, to be caught up in the roots of a stalwart sapling.

The remnants found on this beach include everything, including the kitchen sink. Here, one of the spigots is still attached.

An old bottle dances in the sun and the current of the ocean.

One of several derelict boats finds itself half-buried in the sand.

That same boat takes on an ominous character under the skies which threaten storms.

Admiral's Row - further exploration

2008-03-02T13:48:00.011-05:00

While photographing Admiral's Row last week, one of the things which presented a challenge was pulling personality and individuality out of structures which seemed almost methodically sterilized. There were great architectural flourishes to be sure, but these reveal little of the human element within the structures. On the other hand, traces of residency were fairly scant in all but quarters H and L, which had current and recent squatters respectively.

After the Navy was done with the Row, the various quarters were used in the civilian sector for a number of years before they fell into abandonment. When the last residents moved out, they cleaned house quite well - that, or they were cleaned up after; very few traces of personality remain outside of the architectural character of the buildings themselves. But this is not to say that there are no revealing little details to be seen. They're there, and here are a few.

Here's the front entryway to Quarters D:

And here's the porthole door seen at the end of that hallway, a symbol of the structure's assigned purpose:

The solarium in Quarters G:

And a the peeling paint on the wall in there:

And here's a few more.

Some lovely wallpaper in Quarters E.

Quarters L wallpaper, slaked off and fallen to the ground.

Bathroom drinking cup, Quarters B.

The parlor in Quarters D.

One of many newspapers discarded in Quarters L, still clearly used as a residence by a squatter with a taste for Juicy Juice and potato chips.

Tennis Court Rules.

One of very few pieces of nonarchitectural evidence inside the structures which indicates their original use.

Admiral's Row

2008-02-28T15:05:00.018-05:00

There has been some debate as to whether Admiral's Row is worth saving. That the superstructures of the building are salvageable is beyond doubt, based both on my site visit, and upon the report of the National Guard (forthcoming in PDF). Here's a little peek at what the interiors look like:

First light breaking in Quarters G.

Quarters D, second floor stairs with view into common bathroom.

Same stairs as viewed from burnt-out attic.

Limp doorknob, Quarters E.

Common bathroom, Quarters G.

Ceiling detail, Quarters B.

Quarters B, spiral staircase to fourth floor.

Oculus in ceiling above same spiral staircase.

Check out further photos in upcoming blogs on this site, as well as on The Pasilalinic-Sympathetic Compass.