67 Comments Posted by Owen

Does anyone know where the chapel is in the quad. I know it’s in building 41 but has anyone seen it?

Thanks to a conversation with TomB. recently, and your report here, as well as a visit to the Forbidden Places pages, was able to visit this site the other day, with great pleasure. It is still possible to enter the underground section, if one does so quietly and unobtrusively. The cemetery above ground here is well worth a long stroll around, in the far back there is even a large copy of Rodin's Thinker, and many other beautiful sculptures. But the below ground galleries are truly out of this world, in many years of exploring cemeteries, have never seen anything quite like this place. Am posting some photos on my blog, which can be found by Googling " Magic Lantern Owen"... And remain a serious admirer of all that you do here on Opacity.

The final photo in this most remarkable series on Kings Park Hospital, and a priceless sociological documentary that ought one day to be published.
As I have travelled with Mott through the empty rooms and decaying corridors of the institution, my main thoughts have been to visualise it's past, and to try and picture the many & varied scenes that it must have born witness to. Night nurses bent over their desks beneath anglepoise lamps- a slumbering ward whose peace is broken by the pitiful cries of a disturbed patient waking from a nightmare, to whom the ward sister quickly rushes to administer the balm of whispered reassurance and a sedative- elderly war veterans in wheelchairs nodding in the warmth of the afternoon sun, as mellow rays and the smell of honeysuckle wafted through an open window and insects droned in the bushes- a young consultant neurologist agonising late into the night some time in the early '50s over the request for a lobotamy by a despairing psychotic, tapping his pen against his teeth and deciding to take it up with his superiors- maintenance men seated in the greasy subterranean light of the boiler rooms, reading magazines and scratching a cat's ears as a radio sings in the background- a frightened child in the pediatric wards of the early '80s reassured into giggles when she sees her old muppet pal Gonzo peeping at her on the wall, and her special nurse squeezes her hand to comfort her- the clunk of pool balls in the recreation rooms- a young schitzophrenic proudly showing her visiting parents the murals she has helped to paint- Summer nights when rainstorms lashed the venerable Ivy-covered walls of the Quad, and ships hooted out in Long Island Sound- the angry yells and curses of a violent patient confined to a secure excercise area- the click and shuffle of looms in the weaving therapy room- a young man soon to be discharged after recovering from a nervous breakdown, intensively working on scripts for the hospital Christmas show as his parting contribution- the scurry of activity in the corner of a ward when a patient is found to have overdosed, with screens drawn around the bed and nurses running for emergency equipment as the duty doctor frantically tries to save another life- morgue attendants hosing down autopsy tables with disinfectant- flowers from relatives & friends blooming in vases- canteen staff gossiping as they prepare to serve another lunch- delivery vehicles reversing up to service entrances on cloudy afternoons..... I could go on and on, but it is the echoes of these and countless other cameos in time that the old hospital holds within her walls. Now all is still, and quiet; the past ages hang like a dust sheet on the buildings, pregnant with memories, and the future is a distant spark. For now, let her slumber....

I think they are jets- it must have been a sort of very early jacuzzi system.
Whatever abusive wretches they had on the staff, the hospital planners and designers must have had progressive and idealistic visions for the sort of facilities they wished to offer.

Couldn't they even dignify the deceased by putting their names on the stones, instead of just a number??!

Superb condition in comparison to the other dormitories- wonder why that is?

I say it's rust- there's no way they'd leave blood lying around, even if it was dry, and however quickly they were evacuating the building; it'd be too much of a health hazard.

That would make a good magazine or periodical cover.

Hope that was a joke, Scrapper K.....
Can't believe how quickly the paint goes to hell; you turn your back on it and it's flaking off the walls! The doors seem immaculate by comparison....

Nice room- unusual and stylish shape....

Building 93 does look very sinister- almost like the architects were trying to design it like that deliberately, as some kind of a cliched image of a hospital from an old Hammer Horror film. No imagination, or what??!
Can appreciate the need to keep ground space to a minimum, but even so....
Looking at this amazing portfolio of pictures, I can't believe that such a massive complex has just been left disused to rot away and decay like this. If it was a single block of flats or something it'd be less remarkable, but this place is HUGE!! There are loads of homeless people in New York City and it's environs- couldn't it be used as a big hostel and rehab centre for them, where they could learn basic skills to help them get back on their feet again?
And what about all the struggling buisnesses that can't afford the stupid office rents of Manhattan? That old hospital would make a terrific buisness park if refurbished!! It all seems such a pointless waste....

There was one just like this in the zoology department of Birmingham University (that's Birmingham, England, not Alabama) where my dad worked as a scientist. Used to be scared to death of it as a child, I used to have terrifying fantasies of being locked in it!
This one looks in very good shape though- ANOTHER piece of expensive kit that the Third World's crying out for and the Western world can afford to just let rot....

Kate, are you a fellow Brit by any chance??!
What were these cabinets used for? They look like they're very good quality...

Daft to leave a piece of equipment like this- even if it does date from '73 it's still useable, and optometry instruments like that are expensive.
There's many an underfunded African bush hospital that would be glad to have that sent out to them- and a lot of the other equipment and furniture, too.

Take a closer look at the cabinet drawers- the cat 's remains are actually lying in a seperate, smaller drawer that has been removed from another cabinet, and placed within the larger drawer. The smaller drawer (coloured grey) is too tall to allow the larger drawer (black) to be shut- it's jamming it open. Thus it'd be physically impossible for the cat to have been shut in.
I agree that it probably died naturally- also that it should be left to rest in peace.