New York

Two days ago, the family and I went to upstate New York to see the Hudson River State Hospital. It was about a two hour drive, but the scenery was beautiful. I was so excited to see the hospital. Built in 1871, it was home to over 3,000 patients inside 52 buildings and on 300 acres of land at its highest point in time. It  didn't start out that big though, over the years, buildings were added to it. It finally closed down in the 90's and was left abandoned in the early 2000's. As I've mentioned before, I love going exploring in abandoned structures with my boyfriend, so when given the opportunity to see this, I jumped on it. We were under the impression though, that it was free to go into; not patrolled or privately owned. We learned later that it was in fact privately owned and patrolled. No signs were posted though, so we just walked right through the front gate. The driveway was long, and over grown with trees and bushes, so we didn't see the buildings right away. Soon, though, you could see the largest of the 52 buildings towering over the trees. The closer we got, the more we saw. Eventually the road split, and we chose to walk to the right. Looking down that street, you could see the main building, where visitors were welcomed and where some of the more "normal" patients were housed. The building on the right was the dormitories for the employees; this was the first building we chose to go into. Of course, all of the doors were locked, but we did manage to find a window that had been broken by previous hoodlums. You could tell people went in and out a lot, because there was a chair on each side of the window. That's how we climbed in. The room we hopped into seemed to be a wreck room of sorts, with two old vending machines and some seating along the walls. Through the halls we went, coming to a large cafeteria. The paint was peeling and the wall paper was falling off, but you could still see all of the original colors and designs. The ceiling fans were turning slightly from the breeze coming through broken windows. Upstairs we found more narrow hallways and empty rooms. In the middle of the building was a large room that was primarily empty, save for a few miscellaneous items left behind. In the center of the room was a huge fireplace and chimney; the walls surrounding it had been knocked down, so that you could see straight down to the lower floors. Actually, you couldn't even see the bottom, it just faded to darkness. The ladder to the roof was skinny and rusted. The roof was soft and felt like it could fall in at any moment. Going back inside we went back downstairs, past the way we entered and into the basement. It was creepy. There was no light down there, so we used the flashlights. Pipes were falling down and electrical wires were coming out of their holdings in the walls. The floor had a layer of water and it was cold and damp. It felt like the setting for a horror movie. Other than the maintenance items, there was nothing in the basement, so we went back to the window to venture to another building. Further down the road, there was a more modern looking building, so we decided to look into it. Again, the doors were locked, only this time there were no windows in the building. So I found an entrance on the other side, a garage door, probably where trucks made their deliveries. It was flooded though. We were about to wade through the water when a car stopped and out came the site coordinator for the complex. He told us that we had one chance to leave, or he would call the cops. We were not there to cause problems, and I think he saw that, because he immediately apologized for sounding demanding and asked us what we were doing there. We told him that we thought it was government owned, but we were informed that seven months ago, a private owner purchased the place. He also said that he would have been more than happy to give us a tour, but that he couldn't legally, due to the asbestos in the buildings. So, unfortunately, we ended up leaving after only seeing one of the buildings. It was neat, though. There is a strange beauty in dilapidation, especially when the subject is so rich in history.