Kings Park Psychiatric Center: Patient Wards

The last building we explored at the abandoned Kings Park Psychiatric Center (after Building 93 and a doctor's cottage) was a large building that once housed patient wards. The door was wide open so we just walked right in—there wasn't much left inside but the peeling paint, humorous graffiti and eerie corridors made it a worthwhile place to creep for a bit.

There are so many buildings on KPPC's campus (more than 100 during its lifetime) that I can't be sure exactly which one this was—and we saw several others that had very similar layouts—but it had what appeared to be individual rooms as well as larger spaces and balconies on every floor. The peeling paint was particularly artful and I could do an entire post just waxing poetic about layer after layer of the curling, cracking, pastel flakes.

I generally think that most graffiti is terrible in abandoned places, and of course wish I could see these places in a more pristine condition, but occasionally I'll come across something that makes me laugh. "Call your mother, she worries" was one of my favorites, especially because my mother was actually with me exploring KPPC—after our New York City Farm Colony adventure she was hooked.

Although not nearly as full of stuff as Building 93, this building still had some of its bathroom fixtures, built-in cabinets, radiators, doors and shattered mirrors. I love the mystery that abandoned spaces have and I like to imagine how each room was used and who might have lived there—what was stored on those wooden shelves and most importantly, who last used that moldy toilet paper?