Harlem Valley State Hospital, hospital in New York, United States
Harlem Valley State Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in New York, United States. Built in 1924, the facility consists of several stone buildings spread across a large tract of land and connected by underground tunnels.
The hospital opened its doors in 1924 and treated people with mental illness for decades, using insulin shock therapy and electro-shock treatments in its early years. The facility closed in 1994 after funding cuts led to the transfer of many patients to smaller facilities.
The buildings are now closed and access is prohibited due to structural collapse risks, mold, and asbestos. Warning signs and security patrols keep visitors from entering the decaying structures.
The grounds hold a cemetery called Gates of Heaven, where many graves remain unmarked. The morgue rooms with their old slab drawers now attract people searching for traces of the past.
Location: New York
GPS coordinates: 41.63730,-73.57230
Latest update: December 4, 2025 13:35
This collection brings together former psychiatric hospitals and sanatoriums that carry difficult histories and reputations as places where the past seems to linger. Many of these buildings stand empty or have been converted to new purposes, but they all share a common thread: they once treated patients under conditions that were often experimental and sometimes cruel. Over the years, accounts of mistreatment, strange occurrences, and unexplained presences have drawn historians, urban explorers, and visitors curious about the darker chapters of medical history. From the northeastern United States to isolated corners of Europe, Asia, and other regions, each site tells its own story of suffering and change. The collection includes places like Willard Asylum in New York, where patients spent entire lifetimes behind its walls, and the Gothic Revival ruin of the Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island, now visible only from a distance. In Italy, the Ospedale Psichiatrico di Volterra grew from a medieval hospice into a sprawling complex, while Severalls Hospital in Essex treated patients for more than a century using methods that ranged from electroshock to lobotomy. Rockhaven Sanitarium in California offered a gentler approach for women, yet its empty cottages now evoke a sense of time standing still. Whether exploring the overgrown pathways of Letchworth Village or walking the silent corridors of Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, visitors encounter buildings that witnessed decades of human struggle and transformation.
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