"Love Was Here"
photo and article by John S LES
A recent visit to the Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood, NY, formally the Pilgrim State Hospital, allowed me to look at how when love and positive direction work in unison, they are a powerful force. When those two emotions divorce each other, they can leave nothing but ruin. However, even in the ruins, you can witness the love, the life, the energy of people that used to exist.
Covering nearly a nearly 2,000 acres are numerous abandoned buildings and that once made this entire facility it's own, independent "city" within Brentwood itself. In it's peak it housed some 12,500 patients, with a total campus population of some 16,000 people. That's a larger population than many towns throughout the rest of Long Island, and across the United States. Pilgrim State Hospital was created in 1931 to harbor the overflow of psychiatric patients from New York City. Pilgrim State Hospital campus covered so much land and space t it's own independent operation so massive that it had it's own farm, complete with pigs, train station, police, firemen, church, water tower and cemetery. It's campus borders touched four different towns on Long Island.
Today, only a few of main buildings remain operational. The rest of the campus lays dormant, abandoned, slowly eroding to the laws of Mother Nature, vandals, trespassers, and forgotten life stories. But, there once was love here. There once existed a facility that for better or worse, for the good of the state of New York, housed working people, doctors, and patients.
Many will speak of the lobotomies and other medical practices that were done here. Many of these procedures are no longer practiced and are now considered extreme and cruel. However, there was a life here, a living campus of working people who were placed in a large and very isolated world. For many who worked here in this small community - this wasn't just a job, it was a way of life.
Love was once here in these abandoned parts. For more on this facility please view this website or this independently made YouTube video. And of course enjoy my pictures below!
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| Photo by John S LES |
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| Photo by John S LES |
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| Photo by John S LES |
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| Photo by John S LES |
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| Photo by John S LES |
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| Photo by John S LES |
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| Photo by John S LES |
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