I don't really know where to begin with Overbrook.
Originally constructed during the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries on land in the township of Cedar Grove, New Jersey the Essex County Hospital Center, more commonly referred to as Overbrook Asylum, was at first a general hospital before a change of ownership in 1920 led to it becoming a mental institution. Over the decades the facility continued to expand until it's abrupt closure during the start of 2007. A new more modern hospital had opened at the end of 2006 and all the patients were transferred there leaving the asylum, and all it's contents, to rot.
My friend who has lived local to it his entire life had been exploring it since practically the day after it closed it's doors. He reckons that in an almost ten year period he had been in there over four hundred times, so much so he said he could wander around the whole site with his eyes closed. After it closed in 2007, around half the buildings were demolished (sadly including the main hall
) but the rest had been left abandoned until demolition of the other half of the site began at the beginning of 2016.
I had originally planned to go here during my trip in September the previous year, but my friend got busted by the police who were actually hiding inside one of the ground floor corridors waiting for him not long before I flew out so he was giving it a wide berth for a little while, but I eventually got there the next spring just as buildings were beginning to come down. At the time of my visit I described it to him as like the best parts of all my favourite asylums over here rolled into one, with the added bonus of the most epic asylum power station I've ever seen complete with a trio of original turbines unchanged since the day it was built.
Sadly it's now completely flattened - when I was over in April we drove past so I could see what was left and it wasn't a lot then so I reckon it must all be gone by now.
There were five (!) dental suites, but only a couple were complete.
Originally constructed during the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries on land in the township of Cedar Grove, New Jersey the Essex County Hospital Center, more commonly referred to as Overbrook Asylum, was at first a general hospital before a change of ownership in 1920 led to it becoming a mental institution. Over the decades the facility continued to expand until it's abrupt closure during the start of 2007. A new more modern hospital had opened at the end of 2006 and all the patients were transferred there leaving the asylum, and all it's contents, to rot.
My friend who has lived local to it his entire life had been exploring it since practically the day after it closed it's doors. He reckons that in an almost ten year period he had been in there over four hundred times, so much so he said he could wander around the whole site with his eyes closed. After it closed in 2007, around half the buildings were demolished (sadly including the main hall
I had originally planned to go here during my trip in September the previous year, but my friend got busted by the police who were actually hiding inside one of the ground floor corridors waiting for him not long before I flew out so he was giving it a wide berth for a little while, but I eventually got there the next spring just as buildings were beginning to come down. At the time of my visit I described it to him as like the best parts of all my favourite asylums over here rolled into one, with the added bonus of the most epic asylum power station I've ever seen complete with a trio of original turbines unchanged since the day it was built.
Sadly it's now completely flattened - when I was over in April we drove past so I could see what was left and it wasn't a lot then so I reckon it must all be gone by now.
There were five (!) dental suites, but only a couple were complete.
The power plant would have been impressive enough as a standalone industrial explore, it was the last thing my friend showed me before we headed off and he, in my mind at least, had saved the best bit until last. A boiler house long without a roof, and the turbine hall with three small turbines flanked by a massive wall of switchgear panels. I was in heaven.
Thanks for looking
