I first attempted this particular asylum a good few years ago when I was on my second (I think) visit to the States and it was a bust. I also attempted it a year or so later and it was also a bust, so it was fantastic to finally step foot inside the decaying halls once and for all.
Like many similar abandoned psychiatric hospitals in the USA, this one isn't totally abandoned. Maybe just under half the buildings are derelict with the rest being a still very active psychiatric hospital. This means that although the grounds are easy to access, anyone seen by staff carrying tripods, bags or in general looking like they don't belong is immediately told to leave or have the police called - and whilst this property has security it doesn't have an on-site OMH (Office of Mental Health) police team like many other partially abandoned asylums. But State and city police are known to often cruise around the grounds anyway looking for troublemakers.
It was mid afternoon when we arrived, parked and hustled our way towards the largest abandoned building on the campus, the so-called 'quad' building. A huge imposing structure composed of four massive ward buildings connected by intersecting corridors in the middle giving it a distinct 'X' shape. From there the plan was to take the tunnels to another building on site and begin exploring. All went very well and we spent a while kicking about in a large decayed building which had thankfully been spared a lot of attention from taggers. However what followed will go down in my memories as one of the stupidest busts in history....
My friends wanted to go have a smoke break by the car and so after walking back to it they had said break and then decided they wanted to move the car a little closer to the buildings. After re-parking the car my friend is sat there and the driver in the car next to ours - an unmarked dark blue SUV - rolled down his window and out of all the people we could have parked next to it happened to be a security guard
:. After my friend played dumb with him (even though he had obviously seen us walk out the building past his car a few minutes previous) he told us to leave, so not wanting to cause issues we did. It wasn't the end of the world however, as afterwards we managed to fit in another little explore elsewhere and treated ourselves to absolutely delicious chocolate milkshake floats from an ice cream van 
However, I wasn't quite done with the place.
The next day I was up to more normal things, but this place was playing on my mind constantly. I couldn't shake the 'unfinished business' feeling, and the ease of access was bugging me even more. The idea that it was sat there ready for exploring was one I could not rid myself of. Now you've got to understand I rarely, if ever, choose to do an explore solo. I can count the number of solo explores I have done on one hand in nearly a decade of active exploring, so I was encountering all sorts of mental gymnastics that day, part of me saying to go for it and part of me wanting to be sensible and leave it be especially as it isn't in the safest area of town. It played on my mind all through the evening and into the night until the next morning I suddenly found myself on a bus heading out of the city and into the suburbs. I think you can guess the decision I made
I guess in the end I didn't really think about it. It was there, and I was there, and I knew exactly where I had to go and what to do when I got there so it was a no-brainer really. Personally it was a big push for myself, finding myself standing completely alone in the largest abandoned building on the campus in a foreign city in a pretty poor neighbourhood. Occasionally you have to do things like that, and other than almost getting spotted as I made my initial walk to the access point (thankfully the worker had his back to me and a quick 180 turn and walk around the other side of the building resolved it) everything went off without a hitch.
Sadly this building has suffered a lot more at the hands of the graffiti artists, but there were still some cool features to be seen with enough digging. A personal victory as well as an exploring victory.
Thanks for looking
Like many similar abandoned psychiatric hospitals in the USA, this one isn't totally abandoned. Maybe just under half the buildings are derelict with the rest being a still very active psychiatric hospital. This means that although the grounds are easy to access, anyone seen by staff carrying tripods, bags or in general looking like they don't belong is immediately told to leave or have the police called - and whilst this property has security it doesn't have an on-site OMH (Office of Mental Health) police team like many other partially abandoned asylums. But State and city police are known to often cruise around the grounds anyway looking for troublemakers.
It was mid afternoon when we arrived, parked and hustled our way towards the largest abandoned building on the campus, the so-called 'quad' building. A huge imposing structure composed of four massive ward buildings connected by intersecting corridors in the middle giving it a distinct 'X' shape. From there the plan was to take the tunnels to another building on site and begin exploring. All went very well and we spent a while kicking about in a large decayed building which had thankfully been spared a lot of attention from taggers. However what followed will go down in my memories as one of the stupidest busts in history....
My friends wanted to go have a smoke break by the car and so after walking back to it they had said break and then decided they wanted to move the car a little closer to the buildings. After re-parking the car my friend is sat there and the driver in the car next to ours - an unmarked dark blue SUV - rolled down his window and out of all the people we could have parked next to it happened to be a security guard

However, I wasn't quite done with the place.
The next day I was up to more normal things, but this place was playing on my mind constantly. I couldn't shake the 'unfinished business' feeling, and the ease of access was bugging me even more. The idea that it was sat there ready for exploring was one I could not rid myself of. Now you've got to understand I rarely, if ever, choose to do an explore solo. I can count the number of solo explores I have done on one hand in nearly a decade of active exploring, so I was encountering all sorts of mental gymnastics that day, part of me saying to go for it and part of me wanting to be sensible and leave it be especially as it isn't in the safest area of town. It played on my mind all through the evening and into the night until the next morning I suddenly found myself on a bus heading out of the city and into the suburbs. I think you can guess the decision I made

I guess in the end I didn't really think about it. It was there, and I was there, and I knew exactly where I had to go and what to do when I got there so it was a no-brainer really. Personally it was a big push for myself, finding myself standing completely alone in the largest abandoned building on the campus in a foreign city in a pretty poor neighbourhood. Occasionally you have to do things like that, and other than almost getting spotted as I made my initial walk to the access point (thankfully the worker had his back to me and a quick 180 turn and walk around the other side of the building resolved it) everything went off without a hitch.
Sadly this building has suffered a lot more at the hands of the graffiti artists, but there were still some cool features to be seen with enough digging. A personal victory as well as an exploring victory.
Thanks for looking
