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- Location: Pilgrim State Hospital (view comments)
- Gallery: Emptiness
- Location: Philadelphia State Hospital (Byberry) (view comments)
- Gallery: A Grand Tour
- Location: Hewitt State Hospital and Prison (view comments)
- Gallery: Live Wires and Dead Places
- Location: Buffalo State Hospital (view comments)
- Gallery: Night Photography
Some answers for your pondering regarding the use of "Institutional Green" paint in hospitals, asylums, clinics and the like.
The actual color is chrome green:
From the National Contractors Referral and Liscencing Bureau
Chrome Green. Mixture of chrome yellow and Prussian blue, one of industry's most important green pigments.
Chromium Oxide Green. Green pigment which is extremely permanent in color and has good resistance to both alkali and heat.
It is an important color because old technology paint pigments were typically made from the chemicals which produce a desired color as a product of their reactive properties. Chromium oxide has a range of vivid colors from orange to yellow and to a lesser extent, green. Prussian blue (I believe) is a derivative of a iron oxide (not regular old Fe02, which is rust), I am not positive of the specifics that produce that color.
Chrome green was used for a number of reasons. It is extraordinarily tough, and resistant to chemical breakdown. This would protect certain body chemicals, like stomach acid, from harming finished surfaces in a given facility. Additionally, it's toughness lends itself to resistance from pathogens and other foul types of toxicology. It's natural hardness makes it an easy surface to clean. Lastly, it's color vividly contrasts with blood, both fresh and dried.
It was originally considered to be a soothing color, but given the nature of hospitals and other such institutions, it got linked to a color or insanity or medical incarceration. Once modern paint technology evolved to the point where we didn't have to rely on complex, and sometimes hazardous chemical reactions for durable finishes the color was retired.
- Location: Kings Park Psychiatric Center (view comments)
- Gallery: Building 93 (Infirmary)
- Location: Buffalo State Hospital (view comments)
- Gallery: Night Photography
- Location: Pennhurst State School (view comments)
- Gallery: Forgotten
- Location: Philadelphia State Hospital (Byberry) (view comments)
- Gallery: A Grand Tour
- Location: Middletown State Hospital (view comments)
- Gallery: Silence
- Location: Philadelphia State Hospital (Byberry) (view comments)
- Gallery: Depression
- Location: Philadelphia State Hospital (Byberry) (view comments)
- Gallery: Sunlight
"How a society treats its dead is indicative of how it will treat its living. When it does not matter whether or not a person is memorialized or remembered, we are not far from a society where life is cheap and someone's death is nothing."Doug Manning (This is not the excat quote i heard, but it is close enough. And yeah - i know it is cheesy but it raises a good point).
It is easy to say vandalism adds to its beauty b/c it does not have the same historic signficance as more well-known sites; nevertheless, people died at this place. I can go on and on here but it basically comes down to this, these building and the people who lived there, they deserve respect.
- Location: Kings Park Psychiatric Center (view comments)
- Gallery: Down The Spine
- Location: Kings Park Psychiatric Center (view comments)
- Gallery: Building 93 (Infirmary)
- Location: Philadelphia State Hospital (Byberry) (view comments)
- Gallery: Sunlight
The sticker reads, "I love your smile", most likely an encouragement to brush one's teeth, which might not have been the easiest task to perform every day.