Last December, NPR ran a very interesting story on the World War II pacifists who were sent to work at state hospitals by the government, specifically focusing on a man named Charlie Lord and his exposé on the Philadelphia State Hospital (Byberry). Mr. Lord managed to sneak a small Agfa camera in his pocket to show the world what the conditions inside Byberry were like behind closed doors; his drive was to promote the quality of life for these patients and others in similar institutions. These photos, initially shown to Elanor Roosevelt, spurred public outrage when they were published in LIFE magazine's article Bedlam 1946. The story at NPR put much more context behind the images, and also include some detailed letters written by another conscientious objector, Warren Sawyer. Lord's photos (some of which did not appear in LIFE) were also displayed in a slide show. Follow the links below to NPR's story:

On January 25th, more of the Bannerman's Arsenal delicate facade crumbled to the ground during a winter storm. This followed a previous collapse of a corner of the main tower on December 26th. Senator Charles E. Schumer met with members of Bannerman's Castle Trust Inc. to discuss the need and importance of preserving the structure, and is lobbying for federal funding and to secue the island as one of the 11 most endangered sites on the National Register of Historic Places. An interesting quote from a tour guide was found in this YouTube video: When we first came to the island we started to clean up we started pulling these vines down that you see on the sides of the building... we had an architectural engineer come on the island and took a look at that, he said 'You'd better not pull those vines down, they're probably holding the building up.' He also told us something else interesting. If you take a look at these buildings, again remember what I said, Mr. Bannerman would draw a picture of it and say 'Build me this.' Well, he knew the space that was left between the building, so sometimes you'd have a building that was like a parallelogram, sometimes you'd have trapezoids, all different geometric shapes. So the architect told us that what was happening was these buildings were leaning against each other, and that's what's holding them up. Were the vines really holding the building together after the masonry eroded away from between the bricks? If so, perhaps this mistake can be prevented in the future with other similar ruins (nearby Renwick Smallpox Hospital comes to mind, whose wall collapsed in January 2008). Thanks to Xydexx for finding that quote and the research. More photos of the collapse can be found at Hudson Valley Ruins.

I'd like to share a collaborative book that showcases photographs of gurneys in abandoned hospitals, called Dead Rollers. The hand-crafted book is part of the Transport exhibition at Proteus Gowanus in Brooklyn, NY. Along with the photographs, it also features straps from an abandoned gurney stitched into the cover.