Peeling Paint and Radiator, Kings Park Psychiatric Center

Kings Park Psychiatric Center opened in 1885 as the Kings County Farm for the Insane, built to relieve overcrowding at Brooklyn's asylums. The campus eventually grew to more than 150 buildings across 875 acres on Long Island's north shore, housing a peak population of roughly 9,300 patients by the early 1950s. New York State ran the facility as a largely self-sufficient complex, with its own power plant, farm, and rail spur for deliveries. Budget cuts and the shift toward outpatient care emptied most wards by the 1980s, and the state shut the hospital down entirely in 1996. Many of its buildings, including patient rooms like this one, have sat untouched since closure, left to lead paint, rust, and decades of exposure.

Photo taken in September 2008.