Brian Lehrer Follow-Up - Seaview Hospital

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

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

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

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

Current Print Sale: For the next little while, a special gallery of prints from Creedmoor State Hospital, most never offered for sale in any form, will be available at 50% off the usual SmugMug prices.  So if you want to own a (representational) piece of this hospital, now's your chance!

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.