Photo Gallery: Willard State Hospital
Willard State Hospital was an asylum in Willard, New York that operated from 1870-1995. Currently, some of the buildings house a residential drug treatment program, but many have been left…
St. Paul’s School
Note- this is a photo gallery post with only minimal historical info provided (unlike my longer posts) For more context, visit the NYT. St. Paul's School was built in 1879…
Harlem’s P.S. 186
It’s hard to describe the current state of Harlem’s P.S. 186 without falling into the dreaded verbal blackhole of flowery rhetoric that plagues urban exploration writing. I can’t count how…
RIP Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital
On July 12th 2015, the best abandoned building at Middletown Psychiatric Center burned down. (Top photo c/o Middletown Fire Dept.) Previously known as the Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital (and State…
the New York World’s Fair
To read about the history of the New York World's Fair (and its lampposts) please go to the New Yorker to read my comic about it. The second to last panel has…
Bottle Beach at Dead Horse Bay
2018 update: My comic about Bottle Beach eventually became part of my book Tenements, Towers & Trash, and you can hear me talk about in on the New Yorker Radio Hour.…
Brooklyn Navy Yard: Naval Hospital & Admiral’s Row
The Brooklyn Naval Hospital is on the grounds of the perpetually changing Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is half abandoned, half commercial/office/film studio space. The hospital opened in the 1930s and…
SIM Hospital
Disclaimer: The hospital discussed in this post will be referred to under the pseudonym “SIM hospital.” I do this only rarely, when a location is on active grounds and/or fairly…
Greenpoint Hospital
At a time when New York City real estate is stupid expensive, and historic landmarks are being turned into high rises that look like a game of Tetris, it’s surprising…
Harlem Valley State Hospital
It seems like a good time to run some Harlem Valley photos because the asylum is currently undergoing renovation by Olivet.* Soon, it will be a college campus subjected to…
Ball Bearing Factory
Disclaimer: This location is not completely abandoned, one of the floors is occupied. The short story of this factory building is that it manufactured many different things, from paint rollers…
Nepera Chemical Plant
Update: Nepera was demolished in 2015 The history of Nepera Chemical plant in Harriman, NY reads like a painfully predictable movie script about a Big Bad Chemical Company near a…
Greycourt Women’s Prison- La Guardia Men’s Homeless Shelter
These buildings started out as Greycourt Farm Colony- a woman’s prison- in 1918. It covered 258 acres of farmland that were tended to by female prisoners. (If you’re wondering what a…
Homowack Lodge
2016 update: Homowack Lodge is now a historic landmark. The unfortunately named Homowack Lodge was one of the many Borscht Belt resorts that were popular from the 1920s to the…
Bennett School for Girls
March 2022 update: Bennet School is currently in the process of complete demolition. When I first drove by the Bennett School for Girls, I did a cartoon double-take. If asked…
Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research
Update: as of 2015, the Boyce Thompson building has been bought by Simone Development and renovations have begun to turn it into a commercial and office space. rendering and webcam photo…
New York City Farm Colony
Farm Colony is the Times Square of urban exploring. Everybody goes there, takes the same photo (see above) walks around the streets for a bit, and then complains about…
The Embassy Theatre
If you’re at all familiar with famous music venues, you probably know about The Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY. The Capitol opened in 1926 as a vaudeville and movie…
New Rochelle Water Co.
One of my favorite aspects of exploring, besides the actual act of it, is researching the histories of the places I visit. I can spend four hours exploring a place…
Creedmoor Psychiatric Center
Please note that Creedmoor Psychiatric Hospital, now known as Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, is still an active facility for the mentally ill. This post only addresses the abandoned hospital buildings on…
Photo Gallery: Hudson River State Hospital
2021: Large parts of the campus have been demolished and/or remodeled and are now part of a shopping plaza. As far as I know, the Kirkbride still stands, although it’s…
photos of the White Mansion in the Catskills, New York, by Julia Wertz
White Lake Mansion House
The White Lake Mansion House is very easy to find, it’s right on CR 117 in Bethel, NY. It is supposedly the oldest still standing hotel in the Catskills. It…