Medical Auditorium

An aquaintance of mine was wrestling with a friend here and fell off the stage, breaking his leg in three places. Bringing him to civilization after such a calamity must've been a miraculous feat, to be sure. I guess they were thankful someone left a ladder to make into a stretcher for the long, long journey out.

Smart friends you've got there, Ed, very smart indeed!
Disturbing cartoons on those walls. Gotta love 'em!

The exotic side of Philly's underbelly playing to a full house of empty seats.

Shermmii,
You are verbally intense. I am enjoying your comments.

Gotta love the picture drawn on the left wall between the windows... clasic philadelphia artwork right there.

The graffitti paintings of the Zulu Warriors are in between every window and are about seven feet tall. The genitalia is in red, oddly enough. There's about ten of them.

Red genitalia, hmm, poor soul needs a doctor.
Maybe?

ahh philly artwork at its best...

I worry about the mental state of whoever painted those guys with the spears and red genitalia myself.What were they thinking?

I know, I know!

Maybe it was two painters?!?
One did the bodies and another the poor sore red thingamabobs.

lost soul's i guess.

I just love the art on the back of the stage. Everytime I see this picture that is the first thing I see.

Ed-you were in a hospital, you could've found a stretcher I'm sure if you looked hard enough!
Heehee, or you couldv'e used an autopsy table to roll 'em out.
Heh Heh Heh

I love that place. It's so much fun

I performed for the patients here when I was in grade school in the late 70s. Or at least I think it was on this stage (not sure if Byberry had more then one stage). I was 7. We sang Christmas songs for the residents.

Disturbing that it looks like this now.

Come to think of it, it was disturbing as a 7 year-old to go to a state hospitol and sing for mentaly ill people.

whats with everyone talking about that being philly art
that bullshit
philly is one of the most culturaly rich cities of graffiti art

Wow, this would look so much better if it had no friggin graffitti, why do you think it looks so cool in a place like this you people?!

i'll agree with shawn

y do u guys even think phillis graffiti is so good L.A.'S is so much better!!!!

jAZZ you must not be from philly !

You know, I generally hate vandalism with a passion, but I don't mind it in this picture for some reason. To be honest, it reminds me of a carnival. I don't know why.

I think I should come here to jam out, I will bring some loud amps..

ive been in here many times. most of the chairs brake when you si ton them but i found one in the first row that is ok to sit in if your not a fat ass

God, I loathe retards with nothing better to do than paint their "tags" all over the place.

God, I loathe people who still think that it's ok to use mental disabilities as an insult... Although I do agree about the spray painting...

I am in complete agreement with Dr Sketch.

i remember the night we put those tupac posters up....fun times....

Graffiti sucks!!

Just hope whoever did all that wasn't the patients ..... LOL

Not that you narrow minded people would understand, but there is a whole sub culture to graffiti. It becomes something of a brotherhood.
Love it or hate it, it's invading commercialism as well.

Joey,

I'm an avid defender of graffiti, but sorry, mindless tagging is not art and if that's a subculture, I'll stick with mainstream. These aren't even good tags.

I can tell that even when this stage was brand new it was a worthless little stage.

Signed: An American Soldier stationed in Germany.

why did these young punks spraypaint on this old hospital i know they would not like it if some kid spray painted all over thier house

nice graffiti.
(:

wow, so many people griping out graffiti... Why gripe? It's there. It's going to stay there. Probably shouldn't have been put there in the first place, but it happens...

It's abandoned anyways. it's not as if it's someone's private house. nobody has to actually reside there. [if they dont want to anyways, i suppose.] and if you do want to live there, you obviously dont mind the graffiti...

<br/> ok i am way off track. sry about the venting... ok bye

Is there a website that shows blue prints of byberry

it's hard to imagine that hundreds of people went throu this room.

how in the crap did they reach up there to make the lion?

Lovely.

The yellow cat dude with the red doo reminds me of Cat from CatDog. Or some cartoon creation by Doug TeNapel.

Femme, unfortunately they spray their crap on a lot of places that *aren't* abandoned, too. Put all that artistic talent into something worthwhile and then we'll talk.

THIS IS WHY IT HAS BEEN DEMOLISHED....YOU DUMB KIDS NOT GIVING A RATS ASS ABOUT THE HISTORY

so I'm looking just think of people that did that, then i look over in between the windows & start to dye laughing. . .people these days

This was the lecure hall for medical students training at Byberry. They would come in here for lectures on mental health. Also, that graffiti of the cat (or lion or whatever it is) on the left has always creeped me out.

My parents, both physicians studied here for their psychiatric rotation in medical school in the late 1920's. They often spoke of this hospital, but I had never seen photos of what they described during their period there. It is a shame that such a beautiful group of buildings has gone to decay, when there was such fascinating information re: the positive/ negative developments in the history of psychiatric care that took place there. It was exciting to see what is left of the labs and classrooms, however. What an architectural, financial, and human disaster this group of buildings represents! Would that it could have been rescued and put to good, humane use for education of medical personnel and care of patients!