Comments

wrote:
This part is the part I can see from my bedroom window. I want to get up there so bad
wrote:
I live across the street from this place. These pictures are not helping my burning desire to get up in therrrrrrre
wrote:
Curious - I found this website by chance and then spent a lot of time finding out about the way America dealt with mental illness. I'm in no position to be judgemental, for me its (gladly) a remote, further than armslength subject.

For all that I found it fascinating that America needed so many massive institutions, such as Edgewood, Pilgrim, Islip and Kings Park, I guess there are many more but these were big enough to be significant towns in their own right. Then all of a sudden they just became unrequired, neglected and finally derelict.

Along the way I came across two documentaries, "The Lobotomist" and "Let There Be Light" which profoundly disturbed, enlightened, scared and I have to say, fascinated me.

The subject can be viewed as gruesome of course, and rightly. I guess that its impossible to fully understand the motivation of someone like Freeman without living his life.

He appears to be genuinely motivated by a need to help some desperate souls who he probably felt he had a magic cure for. How could you ignore that? And how easy to rationalise away the failures, the ones which responded well and then slowly deteriorated, to the cases who died on the operating table, when the worlds press and the medical community did nothing but tell him he was a saviour.

I fully understand the damage that was done during this bizarre period in medical history, and its inexcusable.

I guess without condoning it in any way, "The Lobotomist" helped me understand in a small way why it happened.

Monumentally great television - its this sort of analysis which helps curb over-entusiastic zealots from getting carried away when the next untested scientific miracle comes along.

Radium based toothpaste for whiter teeth anyone? How about carcinogenic insecticides to make the home more comfortable? Opium based 'soothing syrup' to keep the baby quiet? They have all been touted as a great solution to our problems at some time in our past.

I guess our problem is we want the quick fix, and aren't prepared to wait and find out what the side effects really are - but history always has a habit of showing us...
Ephemera: The Lobotomist
wrote:
I love pics of abandoned buildings, but because all the historic photos were provided, it made it all so desperately sad. The building was gorgeous not that long ago - it is so strange what change can do to a place.
wrote:
I never saw a "1"X"2" tile used on a floor before
wrote:
I Live attend goshen HighSchool im class 2013, and I have been in Salesian, and I swear that everything maegan is telling you is true. My friends have been in at night and see things. When inside, your hear noises but ive been with groups of people and we all hear them too.. Im curious about why Salesian is haunted, you would too if you write on a chalkboard leave a room, go back to that room and the chalkboard was erased.
wrote:
This is what gets me Gov. spending and than wasting! No concept of cost ! Not to even mention the cost of building and/or purchasing these buildings in the first place! How many of us would purchase a home then say well we couldn't afford to maintain it so we just left it with all our stuff in it?!!!!
wrote:
Probably from previous visitors gaining access to the building.
wrote:
It's been a long time, so I'm not sure. Perhaps it was hidden in the weeds; we were trying to stay inside to avoid footprints in the snow.
wrote:
True, perhaps they served both purposes...
wrote:
i too see the face, looks like a sad women
wrote:
Hey Mr. Motts-was the old rink still there when you explored the Pines?
wrote:
@ Sharon Day-Thanks for the mention of the Pines site! This hotel must have been a great place in its day. I especially like the shot of the skating rink on the site-it's amazing how some of these old resorts had rinks in them. I would have gone there-I was a figure skater in high school-it was a lot of fun! : )
wrote:
Mennonites are cool
Ephemera: A Peaceful War On Mental Institutions via NPR
wrote:
If the heat was cranked up really high, why are the windows open?