In place of the usual ramps, rails and pipes are busted wheelchairs, dusty bowling pins and gaping holes in wooden floors as skater Rob Miceli maneuvers his board through an abandoned psychiatric hospital in New York State. Miceli and fellow skater Sean Colello gained access to an unnamed facility (speculated to be the Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood by Gawker) and filmed themselves using various rotting rooms of the hospital as one big skate park.

“Back in 1931 the center was thriving, but around World War 2 things started falling apart when unqualified workers took over for nurses who had to serve in the war,” Colello told Jenkem. “It wasn’t until the 1970s when they officially shut down a handful of the buildings on campus and they’ve just been rotting away ever since.”

Colello reports that most of the buildings are so boarded up they’re virtually impossible to access, but once you find a way into one, you can access all of them through a network of underground tunnel. In the eerie video, the duo can be seen making their way through the dark, wet subterranean maze to find themselves in a bowling alley, a children’s playroom and a theater.

Abandoned places are brightened up, made even creepier and more atmospheric, or otherwise transformed into massive works of art with installations that use entire buildings as creative tools. Whether calling attention to blight in urban areas or making use of a structure before it’s demolished, these 12 (more!) abandoned building art projects make already-fascinating spaces even more of a visual delight.

Melting Facade

A curving brick facade gives an abandoned eyesore of a building a bit of a backwards facelift. With the new addition by artist Alex Chinneck, the abandoned building almost fits in with its neighbors – but not quite. As it slides down toward the street, it reveals the mess that remains on the top floor. The temporary installation turned an ugly building into a tourist attraction, calling attention to the need for restoration.

Deep North: Abandoned Cottage Frozen

A sad little shotgun cottage, filled with the former owner’s personal possessions, was left to rot, gaping holes in the walls letting in the elements. Artist Chris Larson spent a winter in sub zero temperatures pouring thousands of gallons of water onto the home to let the ice build up, and then created sculptures that are casts of actual shotgun blasts to honor the ‘shotgun house’ design of the cottage, in which all doorways and hallways are in one straight line.

Spider Web in Abandoned Stock Exchange Building

A spider worthy of J.R.R. Tolkein’s imagination seems to have taken up residence in an abandoned stock exchange building. This stunning project by Viennese/Croatian design collective For Use/Numen is made of nearly 100 pounds of packing tape and includes a tunnel that’s strong enough for people to crawl through.

Perspective Illusions by Georges Rousse

Master of perspective Georges Rousse creates incredible illusions in abandoned places that seem to cut out a geometric shape of the building and utterly transform it. Painted across various surfaces and angles, they look like random markings from most viewpoints, but stand in just the right spot and it all comes together.

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Altered Architecture 12 More Abandoned Buildings As Art

Eerie shadows float out of empty wheelchairs, trailing up cracked and peeling walls and slinking under doorways in a series of paintings in an abandoned mental hospital by Brazilian artist Herbert Baglione. These flowing black silhouettes in a ruined facility in Parma, Italy are part of a larger collection entitled ‘1000 Shadows,’ reflecting the essence of darkness that is often left behind in neglected places.

The creepy abandoned hospital is still strewn with furniture. Spirits appear to tussle with each other, tangling amid mildew spots on the walls. Baglione’s painted shadows capture, in visual form, the feeling many of us experience when standing inside such a facility.

Such morose, frightening imagery may not be an entirely accurate reflection of the very real, human people who were actually patients at the hospital, but it’s certainly an effective interpretation of the haunted mood projected by the buildings themselves.

Other settings in the series include abandoned apartments in Paris, and homes in São Paulo. See more from this series, and other works painted on urban surfaces, on Baglione’s Facebook page.

What’s creepier than an abandoned morgue? Places that have been left vacant to deteriorate and decay are already drenched in a sense of death, standing as reminders that even the inorganic things we build are not immortal. But in actual morgues and mortuaries – where autopsy tables, bone saws and embalming fluid often still litter the tables – push the macabre factor through the roof. These 14 abandoned morgues, mostly located in larger abandoned hospital complexes, will give you the chills.

Canisters of the Dead at Oregon State Hospital

(images via: book tryst)

The forgotten dead sat in corroding canisters in an abandoned outbuilding of the Oregon State Hospital for decades. The crematorium, autopsy room and hallways of the building were untouched until photographer David Maisel got a look inside to photograph these copper canisters, many so corroded that they looked like someone had painted designs onto them. Each of these 3,500 canisters held the remains of a patient. Maisel photographed each one for his series “Library of Dust.” They have since been placed in orderly rows of black boxes.

West Middlesex Hospital, England

(image via: opacity)

Built in 1894, England’s West Middlesex Hospital was once an infirmary for a nearby workhouse and then served as a community hospital before its buildings became so rundown that they weren’t safe for use anymore. A new hospital was built nearby, and the old one is due for demolition. Like so many abandoned hospitals, its rooms still contain linens and medical records – and the mortuary still bears its rows of embalming fluid and other chemicals, as if awaiting new bodies.

Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot, Hampshire

(images via: odin’s raven)

This military hospital features a reputedly mile-long corridor with its many rooms branching off to the sides, built this way in a bid to reduce cross-infection. The hospital has cared for injured troops through every major war England has seen since it was built in 1879, including World Wars I and II. Its morgue may be one of the creepiest in the world, rife with an amazing amount of decay, an old telephone sitting on the stainless steel table.

Mortuarium Schoonselhof, Belgium

(images via: andre joosse)

These photos captured the Mortuarium Schoonselhof in Belgium before it was demolished in 2007. Used for autopsies, the facility had a 12-cadaver freezer and two tables. Its tools and chemicals were also left behind, including electric bone saws.

Leidner Funeral Home, St. Louis, Missouri

(images via: vanishing stl)

Funeral homes can be just as creepy as cold and clinical morgues – especially when they’re literally crumbling ruins. The blog Vanishing STL chronicles two separate funeral homes that began as high Victorian mansions on St. Louis Avenue’s ‘Millionaires Row’, one lovingly maintained and the other left to decay. According to the blog, brick thieves have been taking the place apart piece by piece for years, destroying a huge portion of the mansion.

St. Mary’s Hospital Morgue, England

(images via: silver*rose)

Formerly known as the Gateshead Borough Asylum, St. Mary’s Hospital was built in 1914 in Stannington, Northumberland. It was finally closed in 1995, and according to urban explorers, many of the buildings are still in good condition and could possibly be preserved, but some are falling victim to neglect. Says photographer Christina Rose Howker, “This was the last time I saw this room with all it’s inside walls on the inside. Last I saw, the three front walls had been demolished, leaving the white tiles on the back wall exposed to world and the light of day. There was no sign of the once pristine mortuary slab.”

Funeral Home, Minneapolis, Minnesota

(images via: daniel letson)

Dark and dreary, this corpse prep room at an abandoned funeral home in south Minneapolis definitely has a creepy feel to it. The combination of the room’s history, the morgue equipment and the debris that litters the floor elicits visions that could come straight out of a horror movie.

Harold Wood Hospital Morgue, Essex, England

(images via: jordan kidman)

There’s no denying it – morgue fridges are extremely unpleasant. This one, at Harold Wood Hospital in Essex, England, looks like it could still be in service. Maybe that’s because it was only just abandoned in 2006, after 122 years of use.

Beelitz-Heilstätten Morgue, Berlin, Germany

(images via: uexplorer)

This may just be the most beautiful abandoned hospital in the world. Urban explorers travel from all over Europe to see and photograph the Beelitz-Heilstäten outside Berlin. Built in 1898 as a tuberculosis sanatorium, it was turned into a military hospital at the beginning of World War I. Adolf Hitler himself was treated for injuries here, an experience he wrote about in Mein Kampf. The hospital was occupied by Soviet forces between World War II and 1995, and by the turn of the 21st century it was abandoned altogether.

Hudson River State Hospital, New York

(images via: der krampus)

Once known as the Hudson River State Hospital for the Insane, this New York state psychiatric hospital features a beautiful High Victorian Gothic-style building known as Kirkbride that represents the first time this architectural style was used for an institutional building in the United States. The whole hospital has been abandoned since 2003, and one ward was seriously damaged in 2007 after lightning set it on fire. The morgue is actually in a separate building, on the northeast corner of the property.

Public Health Service Hospital, San Francisco

(images via: fecal face)

Photographer Tristan Savatier captured these and many more images of the Public Health Service Hospital in the Presidio district of San Francisco. The hospital was built in 1931 and closed in 1981; it’s been abandoned since 1988. San Francisco-based art website Fecal Face says, “In the eastern part of the basement, the morgue still has its freezer with six big drawers for the dead bodies, and the greenish autopsy room next door. Many rusted machines, pumps, pipes and tanks are still there.”

Unidentified Hospital Morgue

(images via: missinlinx)

The identifying information about this particular public hospital has been removed, possibly to protect the site from vandalism. Urban photographer ‘Laserbeak’ says the hospital was established in 1806 and was closed in 2001; he was able to photograph the morgue while demolition was taking place on other areas of the hospital. Other buildings on the site are still active including an STD clinic, drug treatment clinic and a medium-security jail.

Glenn Dale Hospital, Maryland

(images via: opacity)

Originally built as a tuberculosis sanatorium, the Glenn Dale Hospital is an abandoned complex on 216 acres in Maryland’s Prince Georges County. Many of the separate, crumbling buildings are connected by underground tunnels. Local legend has it that the buildings were once used to house the criminally insane, who were released into the streets when the hospital closed – and then made their way back to the abandoned structures, with nowhere else to go.

St. Peter’s Hospital Mortuary, Surrey, England

(images via: lula tahula)

With water-stained floors and identical steel morgue tables, St. Peter’s in Surrey, England is definitely creepy. It was built to serve the casualties of World War II, but the mortuary was eventually found to be too small to handle the influx of the dead, so it was shut down in 2009. See more photos at Derelict Places.

When you look at these photos, do you think death and derelict nightmare or do you think urban explorers’ dream? Explorers dared security guards and guard dogs to investigate and to photograph the decaying, otherwise forgotten, and rotten bedlam of massive Hellingly Asylum. Maybe these adventurers are just insane, or maybe they wanted to sift through the eerie and unspeakable beauty of the Victorian hospital complex. Hellingly Asylum even had an electrified railway, so let’s go off the rails on a crazy train to explore the decomposing mental hospital since it is at this moment being torn down. Here’s an ode to abandoned Hellingly Mental Asylum with 33 creepy photos. R.I.P.

Ode to Hellingly Asylum

(image credits: Luke Woodford,liamch)

Hellingly Hospital was designed by asylum architect George Thomas Hine and was one of the most advanced asylum designs ever constructed. Hellingly Asylum opened its doors in 1903 and then closed them permanently in 1994. Most of the psychiatric hospital is to be replaced by new housing. Good luck with that to those of you who think you will live peacefully on a land soaked with trauma.

Hellingly Asylum, Sussex

(image credits: Howzey’s Hellingly Photostream)

Patients and staff all lived in red brick buildings, villas of this gigantic asylum. Men and women lived in separate wings. There were big windows to let in as much light as possible. Even as “advanced” as it was thought to be, Hellingly was also a place where women who had children out of wedlock were incarcerated. (Unless otherwise credited, all images are from Howzey, urban explorer and photographer extraordinaire.)

The decadent ballroom is only a tiny fraction of an asylum tagged, explored, smashed, trashed and a target of numerous arson attacks. In the theater, facing the stage, near the front right door, there was a hatch where some urban explorers were brave enough to crawl around the creepy underground passageways.

For over 20 years, abandoned Hellingly has been dying, fading, and peeling, but there is a lovely quality that makes you shudder about the ruination. Some explorers have reported hearing unexplained noises up and down the many corridors. Of course, old buildings make noises. The hallway above is one that was in “better” condition than many others.

Besides having a farm, train, water tower, clothing store, boiler room, chapel, dentist office and so many others, there was also a Hellingly Hair Salon. This room has been heavily vandalized and photographed about as much too.

Arson left its smoky and charred touch to the kitchen and central stores, the administration block, medical officer’s residences and much more. There is substantial fire damage to the above Hellingly Hospital corridor.

There is something utterly creepy about seeing a child’s wheelchair in the decaying mental hospital. According to county asylum records, Hellingly Asylum had a special building just for “mentally defective” children. Of course, this was back in a time when people were locked away in isolation, people with mental illness or an illness in which the family did not want to deal.

Outside one of the roasted toasty corridors is one of the many padded cells rooms. Other “advanced” facility care therapeutics included shock treatments.

Hellingly Asylum even had its own morgue and the above body fridge. On the grounds, there could be found “body trolleys” for transporting human remains into this chamber of the dead.

Some folks call it vandalism and others call it art, but many graffiti artists have left their mark up and down the hallways, rooms, stairways, and spooky corners of abandoned Hellingly Asylum. The top two photographs showcase works by Snub.

(image credit: BBC)

Graffiti artists can have a great sense humor, placing the semi-undressed woman carefully above the bathtub. The rest of the black and white portions in this picture are a product of merging Hellingly Asylum in its glory with its decrepit and tagged state now.

Given its sad state of decay for 26 years, nature was trying to reclaim Hellingly. The paint had peeled, the ceiling had crumbled in places, and the glass had been smashed out of windows, exposing the once grand Victorian architecture to be a victim of the elements. If this urban explorer’s paradise was not being destroyed, eventually nature would have swallowed the abandoned asylum whole. Perhaps the asylum ghosts were acting at night as gardeners?

The top photo shows what was once a service area. Walkers, foam, mattresses, and clothing are scattered over the moss. The “Yellow Chair” in the bottom picture is in about the same state as abandoned Hellingly Asylum. Yet there is something infinitely sad about this decrepit hospital being demolished by wrecking crews for new construction.

If the walls could talk within Hellingly, could you imagine the tales you might hear? Would the building scream in terror at what has happened within those walls? If you want to stay updated with the progress of destruction and demolition, Hellingly Asylum has a Facebook page. Some former patients, some children during their stay at Hellingly, report recalling a distinctive smell and plenty of scary memories from this place.

Since the asylum has been abandoned and left to slowly rot, exposure to the weather was not the only thing hammering on Hellingly. Signs of vandalism were almost everywhere. In theory, that is why security guards were hired. But there was something scarier than guard dogs and ghosts within Hellingly . . . asbestos.

In its prime, Hellingly Asylum was a beautiful example of Victorian architecture. Just the same, that might not be overly comforting when having to bath in one of the many bathtubs along with many others in the “public” restrooms.

(image credits: Howzey’s Hellingly Photostream)

Goodbye Hellingly Hospital, where both good and bad happened. The huge complex will soon be nothing more than written stories and urban explorers’ documented photographs. Some people do not enjoy visiting the dentist. Add that with all that transpired at this asylum and it might send a shiver up your spine. Would you have gone down those spooky stairs, ready to bark at the moon and take on anything? Despite unexplained noises in the deserted and decaying asylum, would you have kept going if you ran into the ghosts in the lower right photo? Actually it is a trick of the trees outside and the moonlight . . . or is it? We salute urban adventurers in general and howzey specifically this time for sharing his pictures with us.