Note: Feature originally posted February 2, 2004.

To think of government spending — grand business contracts two-to-three times their value (and the buildings that normally come of these contracts) — is a conundrum enclosed in a walnut of intrigue. There is a certain parasitic gene inherent in government construction projects that almost ensures their eventual demise into a state of disrepair and abandonment. An easy way to make sense of all of it — the thousands of government buildings that fall by the wayside — is to realize that government is not made to be efficient and certainly does not strive to be in any regard. A physical example of this truth is found in any of the one hundred forty-four buildings that comprise the abandoned Kings Park Psychiatric Center in Kings Park, Long Island.

At its peak, Kings Park housed over nine thousand patients — over sixteen thousand since its inception — in one hundred fourty-four permanent installations on over 800 acres of state-owned land. Today, eight years after the doors closed for good, a public park resides in the middle of the property, dotted with benches and soccer goals. On Old Dock Road, the main street running from the downtown area, kids and their parents go sledding down one of the hills adjacent to an abandoned steam power plant once used to provide electricity to Kings Park. Running up a hill in knee-deep snow trying desperately to avoid being seen are, of course, Maat and myself.

While the “No Trespassing” signs suggest a rigid grip of surveillance on the property by the Powers That Be, the efforts are laughable at best. It certainly takes not a rugged tracker to tell you that the roads within the complex have only been visited by snowplows — and days ago, at that. The real problem, as we learned, was that most windows on the ground floors of buildings had been boarded up, possibly covered with sheet metal, and the doors welded shut. Precious electricity for the once-present security systems had been cut. The only entrances to the buildings are of the variety that security guards aren’t going to consider — a loose board that requires just the right amount of lifting, a window opening around a dark corner that has been blocked by a bookshelf (and, in turn, requires a little bit of bodily contortion and light climbing) — and with this realization comes a sense of relaxation, you know, if you’re able to suspend for a moment your nagging fear of crazed squatters lunging-out-of-the-darkness with machine guns firing hypodermic bullets filled with cyanide (which, thankfully, I am).

Climbing through a hole in the fence and running along the perimeter of the largest of the buildings in the complex, Building 83, we found a window just around a corner that had been boarded up and broken through once-more. The entrance, as hinted at in the previous paragraph, required some contortionist stunts. I took a photo as Maat proved its feasibility.

“Is it good in there? What does it look like?” I implored. I then scurried-in after Maat, messenger bag flopping about and getting in the fucking way at every turn, up onto the bookshelf, and down onto a carefully placed table, positioned to make the drop more doable. The first objective was to seek out another exit in the event that we needed to get out — and quickly realizing the futility in this (having inspected the building from the outside minutes prior), we threw caution into the wind and began running up the first stairwell we came across.

The layout of the floors was identical — two to three stairwells at any end of the building, day rooms scattered with cubicle-looking dividers, and every entrance to every balcony welded shut. At one point, on the eighth floor, we saw a previous explorer’s efforts to bust open the welded door — a firehose pilfered from a nearby closet, tied to the door to provide a veritable tug-of-war match to whomever dared compete.

More stairwells followed — up, up, up — until we reached the top working floor, number eleven. The ceiling in several places had been damaged by the effects of weather infiltrating the roof access doors in the attic, later learned to be open, allowing the insulation to become waterlogged and collapse to the floor below. Someone before us had done an exceptional job in labeling points of interest and, most importantly, the stairwell to the attic (floor number twelve).

The attic, dark and covered by a peaked rooftop, had a ladder in the middle that went straight up, two to four stories, to allow maintenance workers to change lights in the peak. All around were raccoon prints and an ominous squeeking sound coming from the self-powered toilet ventilation system. Thanks to a heaping helping of peer pressure, I was able to swallow my fear of heights (and falling) and walk out onto one of the more scenic, windy rooftop patios. On our way back in, I heard a raccoon scurry across the ventilation system above our head. Ten feet later, to the right of the catwalk, a raccoon looked at me with curious, shifty eyes. “We are not here to steal your eggs, Little Raccoon,” I assured in a hushed tone. “We are not here to steal your eggs.”

More exploration led us back into the basement of Building 83, a floor still very much unexplored. In the distance, a boarded window caught occasional gusts of wind and the displacement of air pressures forced the board — which was more like a sheet of wood, come to think — to pound against the side of the building, sending echoes throughout the floor. Pound-pound-pound! Now and again I would mistake it for the sound of someone and hush Maat, or he I, until it once again, as always, dawned on us. In one room, the floor littered with shoes and various pieces of furniture, we found a sleeping raccoon curled-up in a crib on a heap of soiled clothing. Another room, with amazingly dramatic lighting, caught my attention. I attempted to hand-hold several photographs of a chair and overturned table but was unable. Leaning against a dusty chair, I captured a photo to my liking — just as Maat hushed me.

“I hear someone.”

I quickly pocketed my camera and asked, “You’re sure? You hear someone?” I tip-toed across the floor next to him.

“Three times now,” he whispered.

Doing our best to keep the sounds to a minimum, off in the distance, sure enough, were sounds — new sounds — and I’m still not sure what they were. We got to the room with the bookshelves and the exit and I, with surprising quickness, leaped atop the bookshelves and looked back down to Maat. He was coming along right behind me, so I slid out the window and leaped into the snow. The only footprints leading in were ours.

“It’s just us. But I swear I heard something.”

We ran through the knee-deep snow to the next destination, a machine shop, and hopped through a rear window to check it out. The entire front of the building faced a road that overlooked the steam power plant and another, seeming to be a loading dock and warehouse. Realizing that this two-to-three story building had no stairs, we looked around and found what appeared to be a plumber’s office. Maat climbed out the back and up into the second floor with the aid of a slanted plank, and, beyond that, another attic — with a full squatter’s sleeping apparatus (from when we’re not sure). He came back down to tell me about it as I was photographing the ground covered in plumbing elbows.

“Shit. Check it out.”

I looked over and saw a board stuck to Maat’s foot. “Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Can I get a photo?”

“Sure.”

But then the board fell out. Thankfully it penetrated not the flesh but merely the sole.

Down the hill and into the warehouse we went. The first few doors were a no-go, but the last — blocked by a foot of snow — was unlocked and unwelded. Inside was Toledo scale, still quite accurate, and a lot of emptiness. The building still contained a fork-lift, hand truck, etc., and at the end of a long, dark hallway, a set of generators facing a wall of clocks and meters. The basement of the building was completely empty, massive, and nearly pitch-black. We deserted our subterranean ambitions for further exploration of the lighted floors and found, on the second floor, a dark room filled with job applications from 1974. After a rousing perusal, I packed a couple into my bag for later inspection. On the floor a few feet away were cardboard sheets with writing — very sloppy, impaired handwriting — stating things like, “Wife and Dog Missing — Reward for Dog” or “Cement Men Alway Stay Hard” (please note spelling error). After photographing each other holding all four of the various signs, we went downstairs to the old office, paint cracking, to eat our lunch. Cheese sandwiches with romaine lettuce on 12-grain wheat bread and carrot sticks. I also pocketed a couple energy bars for some reason or another.

Following lunch, we headed down to the power plant and looked for a way in. After ten minutes of trying every window and door on this side of the building (not venturing close to the road and away from our cover), we found another door blocked by snow that was open. Inside, the buzz of electricity — and was that a dog?

“That was a pigeon.”

“Uh, I’m not risking it.”

The laundry building, a full facility dedicated to performing the laundry functions of the entire complex, four-storied, sat atop the hill next to Building 83. The top floor, we imagine, was for washing, the third floor for drying, the second for folding and sorting. At the bottom, the ground level, clothes were loaded into trucks for distribution. To get in, a panel of the bay doors had been kicked-out and covered back up by a loose board of wood, bolts at the bottom of which were stripped — so, basically, it was a flap. Directly in front of the makeshift entrance was another sheet of wood, rusty nails pointing up, and as I entered the building, I stepped about a centimeter to the right of a rusty nail, piercing only the edge of my Chuck Taylor’s (and poking a small hole in my new socks). Another close call with Mr. Tetanus.

Today, pigeons and more raccoons occupy the building. A hallway lined with mattresses led eventually to a room that appeared to have been used for a ritual of some sorts — probably by misguided, awkward, “dark” youth — and standing on this balcony overlooking the work floor, we started hearing more sounds coming from the basement. All efforts to capture the sounds were in vain, which was sad. It was a lot of doors creaking, a lot of pounding — all very random, obviously.

We decided that we were done. The sun was setting, we were satisfied, and my batteries were dead. It was time to head back out to what appeared to be a main road to get the fuck out of dodge. One hundred yards out of the snow, we saw a security van heading in our direction.

“Shit. Cops,” Maat said. “Let’s point at things. Take photos.”

I started pointing at the big building, you know, the one we trespassed in, and took a photo as the sirens blared up to us.

“What are you doing here?” the man demanded.

“We’re walking around and taking pictures!” I volunteered naively.

After further exhibit of complete confusion on our part, we convinced the cop that we were really harmless. Completely harmless. Just taking photographs — really — and totally “not from this area.” He let us go. He told us to walk out this way, pointing, which was really quite out of our way I should note, but explained we’d be arrested if we went by the abandoned buildings. Understandably. Those things are dangerous. Dangerous, indeed. And complete eyesores. They should be torn down, certainly.

On Old Dock Road, parents watched their children sledding. Looming overhead was a massive chimney for a steam power plant, completely abandoned. In the distance, children played in a public park immediately next door to a vandalized theater complex, the York Hall, another of one hundred forty-four permanent installations that make up the Kings Park Psychiatric Center. Walking up the road, covered in dust and snow, feet frozen solid, were Maat and I.

“That cop was a fucking idiot.”

Flickr (josephx): Kings Park Psychiatric Center