I've been inside that room before; It's a vault. There is (or at least was) a safe inside of there.

Crywebb - patient records from 1880-1970ish are still extant, but they are at the state archives in Albany and the HIPAA Act renders them confidential in perpetuity.

It is also illegal to administer involuntary ECT (at least in the US), which itself makes an enormous difference. I've mostly only read of it being used for extreme cases of depression, in which all other treatments have already failed.

Kind of interesting that they are referring to her as "resident" there (as opposed to patient, which is what I've seen generally used in 19th century records, not to mention what seem like a more natural term to use).

My cell phone and camera worked fine when I was inside of there; the only odd noises to be heard were the echoes of my own footfalls. (The central administration building, in particular, makes for a massive echo chamber)

Fascinating to see one of the old wooden chairs - ca. 1920s, I believe - they seem to be quite the rareity, as far as abandonments go

Given the age of the place, the lack of partitions is not necessarily all that out of place.

Do you remember which hospital that was? In the one in the Buffalo they attendants sleeping on the same wards as their patients, so it must have varied from place to place.

Was there anything comparable along the rest of the exterior walls? If the walls outside of the porches lack this, then that would be a pretty good indication that this indeed the work of patients and not vandals post-abandonment.

Yeah, come to think of it, I'm not seeing any of the signs of water damage that I usually see on brick facades.

Any idea how far it was to the first quasi-intact floor? All the way down to the basement?

I see pipes running along the right and left of the ceiling, so this was probably at least partially a space to run the plumbing and/or heating, if the heat was steam powered; if the latter, it would necessarily have been off limits to patients. It may have been a standard feature in the Kirkbrides - when I was inside the Buffalo State Hospital, they had pretty much the same setup, with attics at the top level of each ward, stretching across the entire building; though those ones also had steam heating pipes running along at waist level, as well.

As an archivist, I can't help but look with horror at how much has been left to rot. (Granted, the entire building has been left to rot, but things like these, they should have been simple enough to relocate. I recall reading that the Buffalo State Hospital had their complete run of records, 1880 onwards, sitting in the vacant section up until the early 1990s).

Any idea if they're just more vulnerable to decay, or if they never saw widespread use?

They used to give tours, but not since 2003. Even the group running the restoration only has very, very limited access these days.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's Heinrich Himmler

Uh, well, if you try to sneak in you can expect to get arrested; they're pretty good at protecting the place. It's quite ok to take a leisurely stroll around the perimeter of the complex and enjoy the view. But try to get any closer than that and your trip will end very badly.

Out of curiosity, what forced you to leave? Just time constraints, or were workers appearing?

Oh, wow, that's impressive.

Is the ramp at an incline, or is that just the angling of the shot?

Curious how the woodwork seems to be the only thing in the shot in good condition.

Is the red on the ceiling part of the metal underneath the green paint, or an earlier paint-job which they had covered over?

I guess one question is: how likely i it that a post-WWII explorer would think to write grafitti about the SS? Its just a little more specific than what I might expect to see in recent grafitti.

That, and if you look closely, part of the wall appears to have molded/decayed *over* the "R".

Is that spire in the distance part of an actual church, or is that from the amusement park?

Wonderful use of the sepia-tint here. That addition makes it feel just a bit surreal, almost like something out of a dream.