So this is day two of my extended B&W Challenge. This photograph is another one from the series "The Architecture of Despair." This is building 93 at Kings Park Psychiatric Center. I shot this with a 4x5 View Camera. The value of this camera is that it can make corrections for perspective - in this case I am looking up at this really tall building, and yet it doesn't look like it is leaning backwards, because I have adjusted the camera to compensate. The purpose of this photograph is to show the incredible size of this building, and the number of rooms. It is just scary to look at. There were still patients in the building, although it was nearly empty. While I was photographing, I could hear screams from within the building, from some of the patients. Be sure and click on it to see a larger version of the photograph.
4 comments:
Massive! Is the building still standing - what is it used for?
It is completely empty and slated for demolition, I believe. It is surrounded by a fence, so hard to sneak into for "urban exploring." :-) Although the last time I was out there, about 2 years ago, from outside and a hundred feet away, you could hear someone with a hacksaw, cutting out old pipe, no doubt, for sale to a junkyard!
Ken, this really shows the institutional warehousing that occurs in various societies. I got a better sense of the image from your blog, it is bigger on the screen. The massiveness of the building and anonymous feeling from the windows is eerie. I might mean sameness from the repetition of the windows. Nicely done.-- Stan
Stan: That's exactly what it was - "warehousing." It was done all over New York State, and on Long Island at Kings Park, and Pilgrim State and upstate New York, and Massachusetts. That was what they did back then. Ask me to show you an astounding book that another photographer published. IF I can find it...
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