The Wheelchair Graveyard

Of the patients who walked the corridors of this spectacular insane asylum almost no traces are left. The halls are virtually unblemished, the storage areas emptied. And yet in this particular institution it is not too difficult to imagine what sensations the building must have imparted on its residents.

In some abandoned asylums the sense of confinement is the last thing to leave the premises. This hospital drives home a less frequently mentioned feature of the Kirkbride plan: Without providing the refuge of dark, interior spaces on any of its residential floors, the continuous exposure to the bars across the windows heightens the awareness of being caught in a cage. This one sets a shining example of conveying a constant sense of being trapped -- an impression that is only intensified by the many wheelchairs scattered throughout.