MENTAL HOSPITAL

EDGEWOOD STATE HOSPITAL (WESTERN PILGRIM) circa 1980s

the pilgrim project was something i had planned on putting together for most of my life,growing up on long island around what was the largest mental hospital in the world at one time, wherever you were the pilgrim state complex was always visible on the horizon. located in central Suffolk County its west perimeter was the edgewood building and its eastern perimeter was central islip state and up to the north shore of long island was the kings park complex and to the south was islip. for the most part the names of the towns pilgrim state as a whole was located were central islip, brentwood , deer park , kings park ,islip ,dix hills smithtown, great river , huntington station, its history is so unbelievably full of horror and the same type of interest that people get when they slow down to gawk at fatal car accidents, and wonder that the scope of this facility has touched mental hospitals world wide, long island grew around a place that had at one time more people commited inside its walls then residents of suffolk county,

i always felt a pull towards these gothic buildings that sat on the horizon gray against blue skys. when i was young i had friends whose mother or father worked for the state at pilgrim and when they had to pick up a pay check or drop off dad at work my friend and i would take the ride, when we would get close to entering the grounds anxiety and overwhelming sadness would rack my body i remember crying and trying to hide it explaining to whoever asked why that i got a cramped leg or felt sick. when i got older i found out that some people can feel others emotions a sort of empathy just by being around someone or something that had been sad or harbored the feelings of bad expierences. i dont know why good things dont make me feel the sameway,thats just the way i feel things.

by now it sounds like i belong sitting with a shrink or i am crazy but as the end days of pilgrim came and the state abadonded parts of pilgrim state like bad milk the explorations came about. the explorations of the decommisioned buildings was a hobby and some who do the same call it "urban exploration" or UE and its something that lots of people around the world do to off limit places, taking pictures and leaving footprints thats what most of us do, we gain access and do it without permission and without getting caught this is when i found others that felt the same sadness in buildings that were once mental hospitals or prisons or places where bad shit went down, not all some i felt better knowing i was not crazy but not too happy since the buildings and areas of pilgrim give off the feeling of great suffering and there are written accounts as well as books. one book i came across was called "mental hospital" and it documents pilgrim and iys success of its lobotomies. the book also became a guide to what went on in what building a guidebook of sorts .this and the written history of past patients and workers really puts the horror of mental health in the early days in prespective and it explains why pilgrim was abandonded and left to rot for decades as patients were shuffled into prisons or the streets or even just left to die making the pilgrim community smaller and smaller till it fits into just a few buildings. the effort to hide the atrocities the state of new york has gotten around to demolishing its buildings by the dozen. some buildings had the look of people were there just that morning and woken up and moved to another place without their belongings.pictures, personal effects sat were they were put when they lived in the building. the only reason you would know the were not their that morning was the layer of dust an inch thick andpaint that peeled and dropped on floors not walked on in atleast ten years.

pictures and stories are all that exsist of some of pilgrim state like the edgewood building abandonded in the early seventies with everything intact was systematicly stripped of chairs tables, libraries, anything worth of value such as the copper mansard roof it was torched off by thieves and sold for a whole lot of cash, it was done in full view of thousands of people who passed by on commack road daily. twenty three stories up and using blowtorches didnt even attract attention! by the time i got to recon the building and its grounds the building was stripped and swept clean except for three inches of absbestos and the word satan spray painted ten thousand times and the name of every heavy metal band in exsistance. the pilgrim state project will archive pictures and stories as well as information for those interested that will document the atrocities in the name of mental health as well as documenting and exploring the complex of pilgrim state so that its victims and the buildings will be remembered.