Forgotten Window

"Forgotten Window"

I took this pic with my old film cam inside a historic state farm on what once was a mental asylum and estate that sat on 100s of acres. Before the property was built, it was listed as Indian land on historic records. The residents worked on the farms to help grow their own food, 1800's.

When Reagan took over in the 1980s and de-funded all state mental facilities, it was gradually shut down, and over the next few decades patients were "integrated"...onto the streets and into self-medicating via the rising street-drug culture of the 1980's. It now houses outpatient drug treatment programs for criminals that have been sentenced by the courts. Residents who would of once lived here, are now endlessly cycled through the system. They are sent here to attend court ordered "outpatient treatment" in the small, sterile, modern brick buildings that were rebuilt in the crumbling shadow of the former historic buildings. They are put back on the streets; rinse and repeat.

The old superintendent's mansion. My mother babysat his children here when she was in high school.

My deceased grandmother worked here for a few decades starting in the 70s or 80s. She was a demure, respectful, petite, and classy lady who never spoke ill of her patients, but she did tell me a few stories over the years - like the time she was fooled by fellow employees when they asked her to bath a patient that turned out to be a hermaphrodite. Then there was the wealthy old widow that would dress up for fancy dinner parties, tell everyone that the mayor was coming, and try to leap from atop the toilets during full moons. Later on grandma was sent to work in the men's crisis unit where she was often sent in alone to monitor the most dangerous and violent men with criminal records. They were allowed outdoor time each day in a large barbed wire cage, and her only backup was a black gentleman with one arm.

This window I shot above was inside the old, long brick hog barn filled with farrowing pens. I found the old enameled bowl on the floor in some rubble. Around 2012 this portion of the property was bulldozed and sold to a developer for big box retail. r.i.p. History.