Exploring A Dangerous Abandoned Asylum in New York | Hudson River State Hospital

Added: 2026-06-07

[00:00:01][Music] in 1868 construction on the third New York state run Institution for the mentally disabled would begin on 296 acres of land purchased from Franklin D Roosevelt's father along the Hudson River using the kirkbride plan the 500,000 ft building would be the First Institutional building in America designed in the high Victoria Gothic style over the decades the property would expand to eventually house 6,000 patients and cover 752 Acres before closing for good in [Music] 2012 with the grounds designed by the same firm that laid out New York's Central Park the land and buildings were designed to ensure an environment conducive to treatment functionality and security while the main building would not be fully finished until 1906 the first seven patients to Hudson River Hospital were admitted in 1871 as the male and female wings spanning from each side of the building were finished more patients would be admitted later that year just over a decade later over 300 patients stayed here within two decades that number had gone up to 900 yeah I mean oh yeah nope not a chance that there's got be there's got to be cuz look at how it's Bo up there though so some lunatics do this yeah that's not like that does a lot for you though how does it seem God don't do it nothing over there it's cuz I could see it collapsed right there so it's like you can't go anywhere I see somebody writes death walk there they ain't lying today you can see that the female Ward is in very poor shape while the men's board is nothing more than runes due to an arson in 2018 yeah this was like their day room or something had a fireplace look at those nice stained glass windows what's left of them at least during the daytime patients were allowed in the common areas of their Wards though co-mingling of the Sexes was obviously forbidden in fact the church building separating the wings was constructed to block The View between the two Wards yeah even this floor is really bad it's sinking right there too not see yeah these were each the patients room here somebody was drinking in here staff would live inside the same building down a separate hallway look at that there's just no floor it doesn't exist [Applause] yeah yeah this floor is at least somewhat okay uh until we get to this part or this death shoot some Lockers in this one looks most like they piled them up but yeah here's for each room probably is what it correlated with and that was danger fields yeah the bathroom and then over there would be the um toilets in the shower look at all their Combs though still had them left here there just prob was a box that got dumped Governor Nelson Rockefeller would pay a visit to the hospital for the chainy building's dedication in the 1960s and before that Franklin Roosevelt would frequently visit with his father and later as a president gave speeches here first lady Eleanor Roosevelt would give keynote speeches at the nurse's graduations as photographed here bottom floor looks like it was more maintenance look at those old pop tap Budweisers yeah old food trays so this might have been been the dishwashing area or something cuz yeah they got a ton for all the patients here meals were cooked in this kitchen and delivered to each Ward until Staffing shortages during World War II necessitated the creation of a cafeteria which is when the partition trays were introduced previously each patient was given a plate and utensils for each meal that were counted following the meal if not all utensils were counted no one was allowed to leave the dining room until they had been found Boiler Room exercise oh there's an exam bed so they might have been like repairing things still in here there's some old drapes look at that design there's some drapes and stuff a white board oh here's an old curtains still hanging up look at that thing yeah here's some more just pink curtains they look like yeah this was like a lot of the old equipment they dumped here this is a like an operation thing for some MEC telephones trunk numbers and stuff another big room with some beds and the tables some chairs and then yeah that's into the main hospital lings after new patients were classified based on their care level they would be assigned to specific jobs on the hospital grounds these patient groups were referred to as squads and some of the roles assigned were painting carpentry laundry Plumbing housekeeping groundskeeping mattress and carpet making tailor and Farmers just a pile of telephones here's some telephone and a computer and then yeah here they got a bunch lined up as well above the kitchen is the original Assembly Hall where church services and dances were were held before the amusement building was later added as seen in this photo it was used in an additional patient room for a while before ultimately becoming storage look at all these light bulbs they had in this hallway different colors yeah here's blue red ones though two regular churches were later built on the grounds the Assembly Hall was mainly used for services on Sunday while dances would be held here on Monday nights like most facilities overcrowding eventually became an issue and more buildings were required such as the Brookside building here which was a new infirmary opened in 1930 staff were treated here as well with free medical care being counted as a perk for employment old refrigerator here's an old traffic light signal I'm not quite sure what that's doing up in here and just this building that definitely is so far gone here's an old radio it's a baby's crib is still left here and it's all being overgrown while early medications were largely ineffective hydrotherapy was the preferred method of treatment for the more Disturbed patients newspapers at the time reported that sometimes people would be left inside the tubs for weeks or months at a time which Drew criticism but was noted as being effective this is the amusement Hall every th films were shown here occasionally stage plays from New York City would also be brought in and then it looks like they stored beds and stuff in here somebody draped all this during the winter basketball was played here on Saturdays while baseball would be played outside in the summer Tuesdays and Fridays the building would be used for athletics or patients with open privileges were allowed to go on walking parties on the grounds yeah those are old beds and then here's some baths they have for like hydrotherapy and everything they just like pulled stuff out and put it here probably for like the food check out the movie projectors and then here's a view so that's the main Wing right there that's the best Wing that they have While most regular employees lived in the wards a number of Staff houses were spread across the northernmost section of the hospital used for lab technicians or other higher ups interestingly the hospital provided segregating housing for a murder trial jury after all the nearby hotels were at capacity kitchen this just goes down to The Cellar so yeah these were just their bedrooms cabinet and chair left a little kitchen mat here they [Applause] [Music] shared this is the storehouse where just about everything coming to the hospital was delivered it featured large freezers for all the food for the facility The Butcher Shop was also located inside yeah there's cloth here cuz see here's the uh racks and it said what all they were for not sure what this room was this was definitely so they could like look out into here so some sort of a shop or something I think it was cafeteria cuz there's some like cold lockers actually and here's some like jugs of stuff bathroom so like yeah it was like their storage that keep everything cuz yeah here's like some plastic trays for Stuff here's a print out of copy paper it's just blank for employee name and like items for checkout and stuff nice is it is it me yeah while Hudson River is regarded as being one of the better institutions during its day it was not without incident an investigation was launched into the board spending back in 1893 where they were accused of wasteful extravagance that led to the superintendent resigning the wife of a police detective was wrongly apprehended as an escaped inmate and fought against orderly for half an hour before she was proven to be the wrong person assaults on the staff were common sometimes deadly two common means of suicide at the hospital were drowning in Hudson River and jumping from the building with the fourth floor seeming to be a particular hot spot three patients escaped the hospital in 1938 stole three cars a assaulted an elderly woman and then robbed a restaurant Not only was overcrowding a regular issue but Staffing was also a problem in 1972 a union walkout left the hospital at 50% Staffing but before that there were a number of patient abuse stories an investigation was launched when a patient was found to allegedly have been unusually emaciated and disfigured postmortem in 1915 a nurse was charged with homicide after she threw her newborn baby into the Frozen River perhaps the most notable was the 1945 Ryan Hall incident experiencing shortages due to the war conscientious objectors with no nursing training were hired leading to four attendants at Ryan Hall being fired for reports of brutality towards patients over the years a number of high profile patient stayed at the hospital John Ireland a former patient here was arrested after a gunfight between police officers following the murder of his father James armor was released from the hospital after committed for Examination for intentionally running over a man Stanley Weber was found insane by two psychiatrists here after he murdered his wife Thomas Sanford would sue the state after his wife escaped from Hudson returned home and threw a lie solution in his face that left him permanently blind in 1975 the hospital was found negligent when it told one family member their grandmother had died only for them to learned that she was in fact alive and another patient was in her coffin at the funeral famous Detroit Tigers baseball player Claude Rossman died after being a patient here for several years in 1928 Margaret Shane a stage actress died at the hospital after she was found to have eaten two knives and three spoons Arthur Brittain was committed here after he had been found living in a cave in the hills for 10 years newspapers report he could only communicate by barking like a fox Lena spor was committed for cutting the heads off of her two children in 1898 and then there are the stories of patients sent to the hospital for some rather bizarre reasons men were committed for going insane after being hit in the head with basketballs or snowballs a woman was committed for smoking too many cigarettes and in 1908 a widow was committed for becoming obsessed with Irish [Music] ballads like most asylums Hudson was completely self-reliant it operated its own Farms provided its own power and even paved its own roads built with stone that was taken from ay on [Music] site the power plant operat on coal until the 1980s when it was converted to run on either gas or oil depending on what source was cheaper at the time some readouts and stuff on the [Applause] ground it's like 30° colder in here than it is outside into the darkness or into the light [Applause] yeah here's the big old Power Plant part look at that huge tube up there so this was like the uh Woodworking Shop area and then they had like a paint shop somewhere out back here too just a lot of these out buildings probably where all the trades a sketchy attic this might have been the paint shop then or more tools cuz yeah there's a bunch of different like sizes of things so we're in the basement of the morg right now head up and uh see it the Morgan laboratory were built in 1896 as a place to perform autopsies and study the human brain this facility was noted as being state-of-the-art when it first opened oh yeah look at how tight that is that couldn't have been for the bodies but then now there's the slabs they'd keep them on and this would have been the pathology uh section where they're doing their reports and stuff yeah here's lymphatic system the spleen digestive system some just like a a a helpful list to to write things on like observations and stuff the Pathology Department was located on the second floor where tuberculosis tests throat cultures and blood tests were all regularly performed as deinstitutionalization began in the 1960s the hospital's patient numbers would decline down to less than a thousand by 1984 most of the older buildings began to be shuttered resulting in these horrible conditions that they have sat abandoned for decades now the patient Wings had been closed since 1979 and it was noted that the first floor to collapse was back in 1987 post closure some newer buildings continue to be used for offices uh homeless shelter and outpatient care for a number of years right now investigators with the New York State Police seeking any information they can get on the alleged murder of a pipy resident whose body was left by an old Psychiatric Center Police are staying tight lipped about this investigation but what they do say is they don't believe the public is in danger at 10:00 a.m. Tuesday Morning police were called to the former Hudson River Psychiatric Center in Hyde Park after employees there discovered a body near a shed the body police say was that of Joshua Christie State Police are releasing few details about how christe was murdered how her body got there and whether they have any specific suspect they're searching for in 2015 workers would find the body of 27-year-old jerusa Christie near a storage shed on the hospital grounds just over a week later two men were arrested for stabbing her to death demolition of some of the buildings commenced in 2016 when the first buildings of the $300 million mixed use commercial and residential Hudson heritage project began since then the former abandoned campus has shrunk as additional buildings have been torn down for new stores though nonprofit organization preservation works is fighting to save many of the buildings of the campus's 50 plus buildings current plans call for only the administration building and female Wards Northern Tower to be [Music] preserved [Music] [Music] [Music]