I love this. I wonder about the last name this tag was used to display, what was their story, what became of them... lost in time, just like the bed they laid in.

Very nice!

Wow, I bet that plastic (or vinyl, probably) is brittle.

Buried in drifts of passing time, measured only by the ever-increasing layers of debris.

It boggles the mind - that chair has not moved in over 30 years. It's like, frozen... locked in that final resting spot, forgotten entirely by those who once depended on its basic, yet essential, function.

If you sat upon it, it would likely fall completely apart.

The gurney is disintegrating right before your eyes! Yet there are still small reminders of ongoing life in the presence of the leaves...

Looks very... intimidating...

1850... wow. This is amazing.

I would think there's no radiation risk as the machines are all turned off.

I was thinking brownies.

That's an incredibly thick layer of dust on the floor. Amazing shot!

My first thought was some sort of ancient x-ray device, also.

Definitely looks like a hole.

Love the composition of this shot - the fall stopped midway, object suspended for untold years, held by the barest amount of resistance. One day, a random movement of the decaying building will cause the fall to resume its inevitable downward motion and the rusted remnants will likely disintegrate upon landing.

JOY!!! A new gallery! And it promises to be as amazing as ever, what with 30-year abandonment to explore....

Thanks in advance!!! Off to imagine being there, where I cannot traverse myself..

^^^^ Amen, Kath. You said it well. I, too, will never get the chance to see these awesome places. I am an urb-ex fanatic and must content myself with the amateur shots I can take of abandoned structures in my own area (I did recently come upon an abandoned theater that I'd love to infiltrate) but when the pickings seem slim, Motts' site always delivers the "fix" I need. In any case, I am extremely glad for his talent and his tenacity in securing these locations on film for posterity.

After 4-1/2 years, we have had guesses for bread ovens, pizza ovens, food-service carts, egg incubators, chicken coops, rodent cages, mattress sterilizers, air exchange units, storage bins, patient restraint cages, modified Utica cribs, and an overwhelming number of incredibly silly assumptions that they were used to cremate patients.

Honestly, if Lynne could never find anyone who knew, and even readers who worked there or knew someone who worked there couldn't solve the mystery, my guess is that we'll never know for sure. In actuality, the answer is likely very benign and boring.

They were probably some sort of device that started as something else entirely and were modified for a specific use by a person who worked there or lived there (many psych patients are absolutely genius in other areas - the autistic are the perfect example of this). These machines may exist in only one spot (here) for only one thing (we don't know, but I'm positive it doesn't involve burning human bodies or restraining unruly patients) and therefore, the answer to the puzzle is as lost in time as the hospital itself.

"how can you people even speak like this... were you actually in here? i just cant see what is so beautiful about being locked up in some kind of hell hole, if you will. i dont see any beauty in locking real; people up in conditions like this...please fill me in on how you percieve the world because this is no kind of "beauty" to me!!!!!!!!!!!"

The beauty is the building, not what the building housed. The beauty is in Motts' photography and his ability to capture decay and catalog the architectural wonders of these places before they are gone. No one ever said being "locked up in a hell hole" is beautiful.

Evil is not emanated from a building. Evil emanates from the thoughts and actions of the people inhabiting it. Once those people have left, the building itself is no more evil than the moon and stars that gaze down upon the construction night after night. The evil moves on with the people who create it.

These old mental hospitals are places of beauty and sadness, memories and lessons. Evil may have existed in one form or another within the walls of these glorious old manses, but truly, evil exists wherever man does. One can't fairly call the old hospitals evil. Nor can we assume that all activity that once occurred there was evil - there were, and are, and always will be, the basic intention of helping those in need when it comes to the creation of institutions and hospitals. Singular acts of evil should not be allowed to define the entire enterprise, either then or now.

That is an ENORMOUS urinal. I think you'd have to be lying down to miss that sucker, no matter how bad your aim.

"Now these patients didn't even no how to brush there teeth. If u ride threw the town of Norwich u will see the homeless out there sleeping under the bridges."

Kinda like "u" don't know how to spell?

Coincidentally, there are a fair number of homeless sleeping under bridges in my area, too, but firstly, they aren't all mentally ill and secondly, there's no shuttered psychiatric institution to blame around here. De-institutionalizing mental health-care meant a lot of people were deemed well enough to function in outpatient settings, yet later these people may have reverted to a more non-functional state, eventually ending up homeless or destitute. It's a sad side-effect of the reversal from the way mental disorders used to be treated and unavoidable due to lack of public funding.

It doesn't mean patients who could not even handle basic hygiene were just booted out onto the streets from one day to the next.

Over three years later, I'm still giggling at the whole whitehawk/blackhawk narrative. That sh*t is HILARIOUS (at least if you're trying to be taken seriously)! Cattle prods and ovary-removals? Bahahahaha!

Honestly, someone should have been into short fiction rather than website commentary. It's pretty rough around the edges, but creative enough to be the basis for an interesting short story.

Snipped from Motts' copied article, posted 6-26-2010:
"Preston hopes to save one structure, the former administration building, and convert it to town offices. But the town wants the building's former eye-catching centerpiece: A grand, tiled fireplace inset with a big, brass Connecticut state medallion. First Selectman Robert Congdon said he has been trying for two years to get the Public Works Department, which may have authorized removal of the fireplace, to tell him where it is."

I guess now we know where it is. Gone... in pieces... possibly destroyed by vandals or even the security guards themselves. Doesn't sound as though the removal was authorized, either, which may be why the Public Works Dept. hasn't told the Selectmen where it is.

I love your work, Motts. I cannot say that enough. Thank you so much!

Now that is incredible. Not Known. In life, perhaps, but now... simply, Not Known.

WOW! So apparently the hospital was built upon the site of some old settlement. They respected the integrity of the old cemetery when constructing the hospital. How amazing!

Some neatly stacked, some crashed about on the floor. I love the contrast!