Bllomin' 'eck...this is a good photograph!! completely jumped out at me :)

Theres something so enchanting about this...

I am on this site looking at your photos almost every night - your work is outstanding :)

All those abandoned wheelchairs break my heart. There are so many kids and adults in third world countries who could use them, it seems such a waste that they are rusting away in abandoned buildings.

I actually know something about this facility. One of my friends worked here and one of my friends grew up here. Many of the kids here were so severely retarded that they couldn't have been rehabilitated. My friend who worked here said that many were comatose. However, during the depression, they caught some of the overflow from overflowing orphanages. One of my friends was left here with her sister by parents who couldn't feed them. They never returned for the kids and they grew up in this facility. They were normal kids when they were left here. Years of no stimulation and no education took a toll on them.

wheres the menu ?

dont want to soak in that tub .

My son is attending a one-one teaching school where they use these tiles. They are used in the LIPs or Lindamood Bell learning program. The tiles are part of the "vowel circle".

My brother died in Pilgrim State in the mid-70s. He committed suicide. He had been in and out of that place for years. He was only 33 years old. Only my parents know all of the horrors that went on there and thank God they never fully shared them with us. My brother was a wonderful man who had a horrible desease and suffered God only knows what. I only hope others will have a more humane fate.

cool and inspiring web

joe, I would imagine they had abandoned hope long before they got here. They were, after all, suffering from a largely incurable illness.

it reminds me of the barn at an old tb Hospital where I once worked in Maryland (now a gleaming life care center). The lovely victorian barn that had once housed the hospital's cattle and pigs burned rather spectacularly back in the eighties. Combing through the wreckage a few days later, I found 1 1/2 inch iron rods that had tied the frame together. The fire had been so hot that the rods became molten and as they fell, they assumed the shape of whatever timbers they had hit on the way down.

wow, that is old, isn't it? That looks like the sediment bulbs they used to put on carbeurators before they invented fuel filters.

dental suction maybe? You know, the spit sucker they stick in you mouth to keep the area where they are working dry?

ooohh, Toy Story II anyone? What was the name of the creepy neighbor kid who tore all his toys apart and glued them back together in creepy combinations? The spider with the doll's head?

Tumbleforms makes some pretty cool equipment. My toddler, who has had a stroke, has a lot of fun in therapy with this stuff. It makes me sad to think of all the kids in third world countries that don't have basic medical care, let alone therapy, who could be using this stuff.

"Going off," or "Going off the head," were terms that the kids used in the home for troubled youth where I taught. They all did it pretty regularly too.

yep, exactly the same uncomfortable plywood seats with beautiful ornamental cast iron supports. our building was built in 1827, so I guess this is in the ballpark of the same age. please excuse my typing, i'm not illiterate, just typing around a cat.

the junior high where I last taught had exactly those seats.

Beautiful as always, my friend. Just out of curiosity, do you ever get tempted to sit in the lonely chairs, just to give them a purpose again? I know I would...

EWWWW, but the GERMS, the GERMY GERMS! Asbestos! Lead Paint Dust! Just Plain Yucky Water that Seeped Through the Roof and Ceiling! Ickk

somehow it is almost as creepy to think about "sane" people playing paintball in an abandoned asylum as it is to think about the insane people there before it closed.

why is there ductwork on a porch?

so, did this place start life as a TB sanitarium too?

are you suggesting that Mr. Motts lacks the experience to recognize a brassiere when he sees one?

<beg>

I would guess that it was as much to keep the weather out while they decided what to do with it as to keep people out. They probably didn't want people breaking the windows either.

Interesting! In this photo the wooden blocks look like they were laid on top of concrete. I wonder if they were just there to cushion the floor or deaden the noise?