3,698 Comments Posted by Motts

The entire thing has been scrapped, there's nothing left now.

There is no tour that I know of.

I'm not entirely sure about Weston in particular, but most accounts I've read about hospital life sound quite static and uneventful... aside from meals, the popular kind of therapy at the time (occupational, hydrotherapy, etc), and holidays, there seemed to be a fair amount of just sitting around. In the early days, leading reformers of the field sought to combat this kind of languishing with occupational work (farming, gardening, etc) and the construction of movie theaters, pools, tennis courts. Ironically, some of these were rarely or never used due to lack of funding to maintain them, or staff indifference.



Reading some ward reports from the 1970s at a similar hospital really exhibited a set routine, day after day after day. Some have criticized this methodical way of life as being used to establish control of the patients, as well as enabling the staff to perform a minimal amount of work throughout the day at the expense of the resident's well-being.



Of course, conditions at Weston could've been better, worse, or most likely, varied depending on the particular ward and point in history.

I believe these kinds of generators are still used in some particle physics research, electrostatic education, and to power high energy X-ray machines. Some modifications to the design have allowed them to supply more power (ie. pelletrons) and are used in pharmaceutical research, nuclear research, and mass spectrometers for carbon dating. Modern particle research, such as quantum mechanics, requires much larger and more powerful accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Yes the arches were bricked in with cinder block after the place closed down. There were windows located inside each to let plenty of light inside (see historic photo here: http://opacity.us/site...farm_colony_building )

The religious backgrounds of many of these people are not known, and it is forbidden to be cremated in certain sects (such as Islam and Orthodox Judaism). Sometimes the people buried here are found only after their death, and so their remains are exhumed and transported to an appropriate place for services / burial.

Yes, his head has grown to about 2.5x of its original size!

It is not possible to upload directly to this site, but you can upload them on
Imgur http://imgur.com/upload
or
Photobucket https://secure.photobucket.com/register
and then post the URLs here to share them. Would love to check them out, thanks!

Yup I think there was a hole in the floor, but it was covered with a metal plate.

OK wallpaper added, thanks!

The first one is always the toughest and will usually require two or more test exposures until you can dial it in. A full moon on a clear night near a urban area, provided you're in a dark place, is usually in the 4-6 minute range with a low ISO and mid-range f-stop. With less light pollution in rural places I find it can go anywhere beyond that, depending on how long you want the star trails to be; out there, it's tougher to overexpose, so best to go a little longer.

Thanks! Still seems to be there, although it was just purchased for $3.26 million in hopes to re-open it.

Thanks! If you've got a car, seems like there might be some interesting industrial remnants along the Monongahela River - there's a road that follows it south out of the city. There's also Bethlehem Steel Mill, about a 5hr ride from Pittsburgh; by far the most impressive steel mill I've seen. http://opacity.us/site...lehem_steel_mill.htm

It is presumed that the lower/ground level was used as dormitories, and the elevated floor was the dining hall proper; so it would make sense to completely separate them to prevent the daily traffic of people coming in and out of one's bedroom.

Yes there's a staircase on the left which provides access to the walkway from below; this junction rests directly on a hillside. If one walked straight out the door on the walkway, it leads to a road or path that is at the same grade.

Definitely metal with patches of rust.