South Carolina State Hospital- Babcock Building

When not busy raging against the Atlantic Yards project or trying to preserve Admiral's Row through sadly fatalistic-sounding meetings, I've been off shooting more historic asylums across the US.



This is the Babcock building at South Carolina State Hospital, formerly known as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, as a few remaining documents in the building testify to. Created in the style of the Kirkbride buildings, while not actually being a Kirk itself, the Babcock building's admin is the second oldest building on the grounds, while its still active Mills building is not only on the National Historic Landmark, but has the honor of being "The oldest building in the country to be used continuously as a mental institution and one of the first mental hospitals built with public funds," according to the NHL.

The Babcock building, the largest on campus includes several smaller outbuildings, among them a disused dining hall which now stores old medical equipment and another outbuilding that leads to the tunnel system beneath the campus. The grounds astonished me, as rarely have I been so far south as South Carolina, especially during the summer, and vegetation not only crept into every crevice and over ever conceivable patch of bare ground, the summer storm that rolled through both when I was in one of the many solariums as well as at 3am during my overnight stay left an amazing impression with me.



Babcock was built in four different stages between 1857 and 1885 by architects George E. Walker and Samuel Sloan, however the actual construction Walker was able to see durin his lifetime only encompassed the three northern blocks of the south wing. These laid out the structure and style for the rest of the building, and between 1880 and 1882 Gustavus T. Berg built the southern wing to mirror the already-constructed northern one. Considered an exceptional example of Italian Renaissance Revival Design, the Babcock Building joined the Mills Building in the National Register on October 30, 1981.


Abandoned in mid 90's, the administration section of the building shows heavy renovation with drop ceilings and wall to wall carpeting, while the female wing is heavily vandalized by graffiti and looks like it had been used for a haunted house sometime in the last decade. The interior of the distinctive red dome has suffered at the hands of vandals and each window is either broken or covered in tagging. The building has unique roll-down metal doors that would help prevent the spread of fires in the wards, but many of these grates were either rusted in place or locked down, which made traversing the building like attempting to weave through a labyrinth.


What little remains of a pharmacy room in the male wing, including an empty bottle of Stelazine.


A fireplace grill in admin.


Ground floor stairwell in admin.


Stained glass, third floor attic of admin.


An old piano, male wards.


Top floor, female wards. One of the few non-vandalized rooms.


Patient bed, admin.


Bathtub in a particularly difficult to reach area, male wing.


Cabinet, dining area, admin.


First floor stairwell, female ward.

Middletown State Hospital

Revisiting a trip that took place in late fall one year, where the last warm rays of sun struggle against the oncoming cold light that winter produces. I love both types of light for photography- they both produce such dynamically different results.

These New York winters are fairly dismal and cold though, and it's always refreshing to get some warming light flooding the halls of these old psychiatric buildings. It becomes easier to remember the human element, to recall the hundreds of lives affected by these institutions, both the good and the bad.



Far too often I'm repulsed by seeing these beautiful historic places turned into cliche subjects of B-movies. Flaunted as haunted, wards for psycho-killers (Qu'est-ce que c'est?), the images become those of electroshock machines, botched lobotomies, straightjackets and padded walls. I understand the macabre fascination here- most institution conditions were horrible. I just don't see how making movies like "Death Tunnel" and "Madhouse" do even the sheerly exploitative fascination with insane asylums any justice.

I have my own aesthetic loves in hospitals. I love lonely chairs, rotary phones, and solariums. And keys.

I  couldn't begin to shake a stick at the number of wheelchairs I've seen in the past few years, but seeing a neglected storage room full of them still inspires great emotion. From the tiny chairs for children, to the potty chairs for the incontinent, to every conceivable style of reclining, stationary, restraint-laden, angled, metal, wood, PVC and everything between- to know each of these was used by a disabled person to grant them mobility, often in an enclosed, closely supervised environment is still a testament to their human qualities.

But I digress- back to my late autumn hospital. Middletown State Hospital is located in New York state, several hours' drive north of the City, I found it to exude warmth. A  reasonably small psychiatric building as compared to some I've seen, the luminosity of its walls, the lack of vandalism, the sprawling day rooms all brought a sense of community to the building.


Late afternoon light through an empty room.


A wooden seclusion room door with an inset 1" thick piece of circular glass. The shadows are cast from the barred window within the room.


A green day room.


Warm corridor looking down on multiple seclusion rooms.


Multi-colored connector hallway. Long exposure shot using the last 10 minutes of light streaming through the hospital.


Dark hallway as the sun has nearly set.


Collapsed floor- a lot of the building is suffering from severe structural decay and multiple floors have collapsed, some on top of one another.


Old hairdryer, moved into the collapsed cafeteria on the bottom floor of the building at some point when the building was being vacated.

Small a building as it was, Middletown is among my favorite state hospitals.