Mayview State Hospital; or, dump the film, punk.

June 16, 2010

I was driving by an old abandoned building this morning in the rain and came across a woman on the side of the road with a Canon Rebel & binoculars. I pulled over to say hello and see what she was shooting. She said she was “birding” and lived in Houston. I told her I was looking forward to shooting around the area, and we said our goodbyes. I drove up the hill, found a pull off, and headed into the brush towards the building. As I was walking it started raining again, so I tucked my Canon 40D under my shirt and used my dad’s G11 that I grabbed that morning for more wide-angle shots since it drops to 6mm.

There were boards on all the basement windows and a fence around one side of the building. The other side had what amounted to two main doors. One was wide open. I was curious. I headed inside. There were three floors with what was once patient bedrooms along each side of corridor. It was pretty wild looking, kinda empty, and a little scary. I kept hearing noises outside.

The rooms were mostly empty but occasionally I found a sink, radiator, or bed left behind. It was pretty eerie.

This was once Mayview State Psychiatric Hospital opened in 1893, and I later discovered that my grandfather had spent several years employed here. The corridors were dark and quiet, but it was raining outside and I could swear I heard footsteps from time to time. This kinda freaked me out so I headed to the third floor. I figured if someone was coming I’d have more notice if I was upstairs. After shooting on the third floor, I walked slowly through the second floor before looking out the window towards the car; there were flashing police lights. I muttered something under my breath, kept making photos as I slowly made my way outside.

I heard rustling through the bushes and called out the security guard coming through the under brush miserably. The first thing he told me was to “dump the film”. I just cocked my head and wondered how I should answer that. I almost wish I still carried film so I could unravel one just to make him less cranky. Behind him a police officer emerged from the under brush with “why the hell are you down here in all this crap?” I told him I was a photographer. He asked for me ID, frisked me, and escorted me towards my car.

As we approached it, the friggin’ “birder” was there with the guards. I turned to the cop and told him that I’d talked to that woman a half an hour earlier and she knew exactly what I was doing. He said she was the one to call the police. Now, why would you be shooting in an area, finishing up, chat with another photog, and then call the police on him. The cop said she told him I looked suspicious. Suspicious how, I wondered? Ugh.

I waited by my car while he talked to the guards and the lady kept eyeballing me. I was to say something to her but I still didn’t know the outcome. Eventually he came over and said he was letting me go and to “have a nice vacation but spend it elsewhere.” He also said they were forcing me to delete the photos; he said it with a roll of the eyes and a shrug of his shoulders. I quickly did so so I could get the hell out of there, and then headed home.

After changing out of my rain drenched clothes, I ran the data recovery program on the disks to retrieve the photos, which are here. I feel ok with saying that and posting the photos because 1) the land was not posted, 2) I did not touch anything (including any portal to enter), 3) because I cooperated full with the officer be deleting every photo I made there, and 4) because the hospital was purchased just last week to be razed (supposedly) for a Walmart. It turned out to be part of my history and it’s a huge part of the history of Western Pennsylvania that will soon be gone forever.

Posted in nostalgia, photography