Creedmoor Psychiatric Center

     In the abandoned Kings Park Psychiatric Center, the iconic numbers are 93; denoting the largest and most interesting abandonment there. Here at Creedmoor in Queens, our target was Building 25, vacant for no less than thirty years. My comrade and I walked to the Creedmoor campus, which is still active, in search of this abandonment, whose existence I never knew of prior to this trip.

     We had to circle the building very thoroughly to find an entry point. Some of the plywood boards were slightly peeled back, but, not wanting to force entry, we kept walking around. Eventually, when I thought we would have to compromise by climbing up to the second floor and squeezing in through a window, we got in through the basement.

     As the building was built around the Cold War era, the basement boasted a Fallout Shelter with dusty tunnels (whose shapes resembled that of storm drains) that appeared to connect to the other active buildings. We would have explored these tunnels further but daylight was fast fading, and Winter is not one to flaunt her sunshine.

The basement boasted a broken elevator shaft, a boiler room, a room where laundry machines lay side by side, and a miniature "jail cell" for patients, presumably the rowdiest ones. This cell was topped with barbed wire, and it must have been very demoralizing for any patient to be locked in this cool dark enclosure.

After stumbling around through the darkness for some minutes, my partner and I located the stairs and saw some of the sights that Creedmoor's upper floors had to offer.

Though I have heard rumors of a squatter living in this building, we did not encounter him. Perhaps he was hiding from us, because we did encounter some strange noises while we were there. Also, the emptied liquor bottles seemed to be a giveaway. Or perhaps it is the residents from the active wards coming out to party at night? (Didn't that happen in the 1999 film Girl Interrupted? I feel 

like it did but it has been too long since I have seen it.)

The fourth floor contained an excessive amount of... well it could have been dirt or the accumulated pigeon filth of the years, but I'm praying that my shoes were sucked in by the former.

As is frequently the case with psychiatric centers, there are often soothing images of flora painted in a tranquil setting on the walls. Their paint slowly peels as the building ages.

Our last thirty minutes of daylight consisted of us running around the top floor, trying to find a way into the roof. My eyes keenly shot everywhere before finally hitting their target: a hatch, which appeared to lead to the top. We grabbed a ladder from the lower floor but it was too wide to swing up the stairs, so instead we grabbed a bedframe and clattered it noisily up (not stealthy at all). We propped this bedframe's shell against the wall, climbed up, and propped the wooden hatch open with a metallic table leg. Unfortunately, the hatch didn't even lead to the roof! It only led to a hollow attic.

Defeated, we left, but not before taking some more pictures first. The sun set and we were out, Subway sandwiches as our consolation prize. Perhaps another date with Building 25 will reveal the elusive rooftop? Hmm...