“… As I went forward, striding very strong, and making a good speed, I did hear presently a little noise upward in the night, and someways unto my left, that had seeming as that it were a strange low sound that did come down to me out of an hidden doorway above; for, indeed,
At first it barely caught the eye. A small pencil drawing on a wall that was otherwise completely untouched. On my last excursions I’ve focused even more on the rare patient drawings that still cling to deteriorating asylum walls. This one at first seemed fake, something added by a recent visitor. But
Found in the attic bedroom of a decaying sanitarium.
This is definitely what I would want to wake up to as a child with a life-threatening illness in this cheery old ward. How consoling it is to think that if you make it, some day you might have a family that is just as adorable and wholesome as those dolls. All the better
Taken a few weeks before the demolition of the historic Concord Hotel in the Catskills in 2008. An earlier shot of the resort – during a snow storm – below.
This art was lovely to stumble across in the rear ward of an old decaying hospital.
It isn’t often that you open a random desk drawer to find a jar with a pig foetus inside. But this derelict lab holds lots of preserved surprises. Bees in a honeycomb, crabs, frogs and coiled snakes, some collapsing into indefinable brown piles much like certain areas of the building that houses them. Admittedly,
A marvelous piece of art found in the decrepit isolation ward of a state hospital. Easy to miss at first glance, it’s a replica of the setting that covers what used to be the TV screen behind the chair. I especially like the faithful rendering of the debris. Below, a close-up of the image
Are your imaginary friends getting a little too intense? If so, maybe it’s time to take a deep breath and spend some time with these dudes, who clearly only have your best interest at heart. Since these murals no longer exist in person, photos will have to suffice. Found at the splendid Dixmont State
This block, part of a desolate stretch of shuttered businesses in West Detroit, was once occupied by the Bible Community Mission. While the mission has long been abandoned, an apparent devotee has decided to keep spreading the word, tagging the nearby storefronts with religious messages. A vacant bar across the street now has a
Found in what appears to be the play room of a shuttered factory in Connecticut, assembled from a monkey, a doll, a severed hand, two rifles, a globe, a horse, feathers, a frog, and Godzilla waving from the number 4.
Sometimes, late at night, it’s still possible to hear the ghostly clicking of the chain as it pulls its last empty car to the top of the ride.
Waking up with this new president in place, it already feels like a better world than yesterday. And there are such beauties in his most recent home state. I first heard of Obama a few years ago in connection with my very favorite abandoned hospital. I had recently discovered it in a small town
In the attic of a former tuberculosis hospital, a torn strip of wallpaper reveals a little boy. And so the ghost story begins.