Comments

Radical Ed or Motts, or any other Byberrian. I know they demolished these buildings years ago, but does anyone have a pic of the pool ? Of all the great pictures, I can't find any of the pool! Rad Ed, cool you put a metal touch to the tag!

Rob P: That sounds reasonable. The bricks in the back/inside wall are the same size as the bricks on the front. If this was a wall further back in the cell, the bricks would appear larger. I looked up "standing cell", and this looks like one.

An answer for the questions regarding the slats in the window and construction above the window. In Italy, a lot of windows have built in roller shutters for security/light control. There are operated by a series of gears located within a mechanical space above the window. The construction above the window is likely the access panel to the mechanical space for servicing. You can see the wire/chain on the right hand side of the right most window that is used to control the shutters.

I'm just very curious. Have you happened to ever come across some old patient files?

Is there really someone living here? Is it true?
Place is light enough, but yet forlorn, last hope gone and full of despair, and sorrow.
That is one very brave person!

Fifteen windows! At least! That is a light room! The lamps are so pretty, too. It is very good, the picture!

Motts said it was torn down in 08'

Pat -as usual your oration is succinct-but we dream of Bennnett - a dream not to come true -Celeste- the pics are great -how regal the buildin is -a lost art to the classy ness being modeled today-however love Ground Zero

Nice heart warming post Pat ^^

Speaking of Demolished buildings, during my analysis of Halcyon Hall's architecture, I came across photos of another Halcyon Hotel built around the same time as Halcyon Hall in Miami Florida. Also with a beautiful design. This building was demolished in the 1930s I assume for the land rather than its condition.

http://floridamemory.c...ference/rc14343a.jpg

Photo of it being taken apart.

http://the305.com/blog...yonhotel/rc06685.jpg

I wonder if Halcyon Hall would be taken apart so elegantly? Or just smashed to pieces? One wonders...

it has to be said, this building was past saving about a decade ago.
Believe me, every effort was made by historical/preservation entities,
but only just before it was physically too late. And in fact the current
owner of record, for more than a decade, can't be blamed much for
it's current state.
I don't think there any real villains in the Halcyon saga, in spite of
all the sardonic comments Motts so graciously lets me spew here
through the years.

Preservation is extremely difficult anywhere. The whole
concept of historic preservation didn't really kick in hard until, when? the late 70's? Jackie O's advocacy for Grand Central, the
shameful and needless destruction of Penn Station, etc.....well after this building was well on it's way
into the dumper [how freakin cool was Jacqueline
Kennedy Onassis, anyway!?!]

Saving Halcyon is out of the question, short of rebuilding it anew.

What I do appreciate is the sense of Commemoration that this building has and continues to inspire. In many ways it will
"survive" in a myriad of significant mediums and expressions.

Celeste, your virtual modelings are but one great example. This
building has been photographed abundantly, both in it's heyday,
and perhaps almost as ardently, in it's demise. {although never as
compellingly as by Motts in it's decline years, I say.]

It continues to inspire photographers, filmakers, artists, writers,
...I remember a young playwright posted here years back, I have
seen dollhouses built based on Halcyon [loosely...] I remember
when i was young, a cake in the shape of Halcyon Hall! So many
incarnations and tributes, large and small

So this place is at least in the historical record, unlike much of
lost America, but more importantly, in people's hearts, and
memories, and dreams. Often it seems to touch people who have never even been there, in a way I have almost never encountered.
It seems to have this strange Q factor, or something...

And then to think of all the girls who went to school here, and the
faculty that passed through,and the students
who came and stayed, making Millbrook their home, the original hotel guests from New York society, the generations
of locals who worked here, many descended from the master
craftsmen who conjured this grand hotel from a country meadow in the
just 18 months or so they took to build her...

I like to think that Halcyon Hall dreams about all of us.

It won it's own rare second act in 1908. Having sat neglected in
[they said then] almost unsalvageble shape after a half decade
of abandonment, Mae Friend Bennett's relocation of her girl's school
here saved Halcyon, but not without a large expenditure of TLC.

So the ruin we see today was already written off before any of us were even born.Then saved. It's existence for any of us at all was already an unlikely gift from history.

Seing it demo-ed might perhaps be deconstructively interesting.
Seeing it gradually as only the craftsmen originally building saw it,
but in reverse, as it disappears, from profane material fact, back down
to foundations laid out from blueprints on paper, long ago.

Halcyon Hall survives as Architecture. it's physical existence is
immaterial. In fact it may be well in the way of it's own legend by
now. In any event it is assuredly soon receiving the academic and
historical recognition it deserves, as part of a larger story about
American architecture, soon to be ushered to print, and a multi-media
exhibition.

I'd like to think it might appear before Halcyon disappears, but things
happen in their time, as this mighty building demonstrates.

Unless a higher government authority than the village takes charge,
i also don't see anyone paying to tear HH down anytime soon, either.
Everyone be safe. Let's still admire the Ruin however. It will be Gone
soon enough, for those that want that. But many people seem
almost emotionally invested in this place as a high watermark of
American Romanticism. It's decrepitude magnifies that identification,
the unlikelihood of it's survival an integral aspect of it's allure.
It is no wonder people just admire when it continues to stick around a little bit longer...I am one of them.

1930-ties Globes! Like them very much!

Awesome lamps. Like Flying Saucers!

We have come a long way! We think we have come a long way.
And we have. And we are thankful
Not even animals should be caged in a zoo.
May be there still are patients caged somewhere in the world.

Well...not known.....it is sad but also sweet! What could they possibly put?
"We have no idea who this is - man or woman - it is a body we have found and buried now" It would be too long. They were honest and did the best!