I have a little sideline obsession with abandoned ruined buildings, particularly mental institutions, sanitariums, and prisons. It started with Alcatraz and the abandoned farmhouses that list on rural properties in Virginia and North Carolina, and over time places like under-church grottoes in France, the Castell in St. Augustine, the Presidio in Tucson downtown, the Sutro Bath ruins at the edge of San Francisco have re-stoked it.
Plus Melody Gilbert's urban explorer film "Into the Dark" and youtube videos of urban exploration. An old veterinary hospital in Wales, the catacombs under Paris, old train tunnels and graveyards, and all the old asylums can be explored from your couch or bus seat. Without fumes, falling plaster or beams, and crawling through raw sewage... or law breaking and some such technicalities.
I'm particularly obsessed with North Brother Island, a small island in the New York Harbor that is near Ryker's Island. It hosted a typhoid quarantine residence that held Typhoid Mary, a sanitarium, a juvenile drug rehab center, and more. There's something about the mishmash.of architecture and history that fascinates me. I keep trying to use it in a story but it is wily and elusive...
Cleaning out my bookmarks, I found this slideshow from North Brother Island. Some really nice shots by Ian Ference, such as the one above, plus an overview of the island's past incarnations. Enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment