Emptiness

I believe that they were "supposed" to be bleak, so as not to "excite anyone. I bet the only difference is that the floors were a little cleaner.

Believe me, not much. My buddy Steve was part of the state-run clean-up crew for Byberry and most of the older buildings on the property were far along the way to ruin decades before it's final closing. He gave my brother a cache of unused body-bags but they dry-rotted, so he tossed them.

Been there many times, too bad its been trashed so badly. What a great place to explore tho!

Look at this photo, imagine a few more sets of windows like this extending down the room. The floor bare terrazzo. The walls all yellow tiles like those in the photo. The ends of the room on our unit had no windows. They were floor to ceiling tile with a steel door in the middle. Sometimes the walls were smeared with feces. The aides had to wash them down, and scrub the floors with huge mops. There was a mop room with wringer buckets on wheels, and 5 foot long mops, at least that's how I remember them. You'd swing them in an arc, side-to-side. Rinse the filth in the bucket of strong cleaning solution, wring it out, and do it again, over the whole room.

Add a row of heavy wooden chairs with arms; all along the window walls; and see the women sitting in them.. slumped, dazed with drugs or dementia, wearing cotton shifts with a slightly scooped neckline that had sort ties at the back of the neck for closures. They were in pastel shades of blue, green, pink, maybe yellow. Worn with many harsh launderings. Sometimes torn, sometimes, not enough to go around. Shoes were slip on type sneakers. It was hard to match up pairs. Harder to find pairs that fit the women. They often shuffled to keep over-sized shoes on their feet.. or kicked them off and walked around barefoot.

One of my jobs on rotation was to help with treatments. Not psychiatric, I don't think anyone got anything more than a drug prescription written in their chart for that. I'm not sure if the psychiatrist ever did more than repeat the drug unless the patient was acting out violently. Treatments were for injuries from fights, or from hurting themselves, or for the leg ulcers on the older women who sat in chairs all day, except when they walked to the dining room and back, and up and down the stairs to and from the dormitories. I cut away the soiled gauze from the day before, bathed their legs, soaked the dried seepage away, patted them dry, applied an ointment and wrapped them in gauze again.

can i just say that CJ fucking rules.. i would love nothing more than to tour the berry once again with him by my side telling me everything he can remember and painting vivid images in a place where everything is so dull and dead

Yes MadMan..SHE does rock. And I am very proud that she had been able to face the memories that she just didnt want to deal with, and was able to sit down and put into words what it was like, for both her ,working here,and the inmates of this place.

ok i get the point CJ is a girl. maybe you could fit a couple more "shes" in that comment maybe a 4th or a 5th

Not to get too PC, here, but if CJ worked at Byberry in the early '70s, she's probably became a WOMAN about at least 40 years ago!

CJ,
I would love to hear more of your stories, please feel free to e mail me with anything you may think of,as sad as your stories were, I would love to hear more about Byberry's history.

Yes I really would like to see more stories from CJ like this one.

can i just say that CJ fucking rules.. i would love nothing more than to tour the berry once again with him by my side telling me everything he can remember and painting vivid images in a place where everything is so dull and dead

Yes I really would like to see more stories from CJ like this one.

searching for title of book about byberry title may be trapped in a desert world? cj can you help.e-mail at mew215@msn.com thanks in advance moe

This would be an very good trip for children that has behavor problems. Take them for an tour and meet an couple of you they would be scared straight!!!!!!!!!!!!

To a mother who cares, for someone who keeps shooting their yapper off at people on here, I find your suggestion about bringing messed up kids to a place like that to "scare them straight".

Your'e a mother allright.

Arrrgh, the heat, I can't type or think.

What I meant to say, "to a mother blah blah" is I think your suggestion of bringing troubled kids to a place like that to "scare them straight" is sick, far sicker than any other conversation on here, especially the ones you are attacking.

I have to agree with Van Gogo, except the trip may encourage then considering the places just scream to be explored.

you know mom MIND yourown bis

look at yourself mom that cares !

if you were committed to a faulicity like this would you not like to be remembered too.or at least rememeredafter

Not all behaviour problems can be "scared straight".

"Thanks for interesting site. Keep up a great work."

This could be a lot nicer i think.

from what i know of byberry i would not want to visit, but after seeing these pictures i am almost posotive about not going there(but they also nocked it down so now that is imposible to do)

I laughed so hard at "A mother who cares" comment! It's sick but it's hilarious

Industrial slaughterhouse... Yeah, I guess in a way, thats exactly what it was.