Light Switch Panel and Peeling Paint, Kings Park Psychiatric Center

Kings Park Psychiatric Center operated in Suffolk County, New York, from 1885 until its closure in 1996, once housing more than 9,000 patients at its peak in the 1950s. The state-run facility grew to over 150 buildings across its campus, many of which have sat vacant for decades since the hospital's population declined and services were consolidated elsewhere. Toggle switch banks like this one controlled lighting and electrical circuits throughout the ward buildings, standard fixtures in institutional construction of the early to mid-20th century. Layers of paint on the surrounding walls, applied and reapplied over the facility's century of operation, have separated and cracked as the buildings have gone without climate control or maintenance.

Photo taken in September 2008.