Creepy Pictures from Abandoned New York Leper Colony

[superpatriotman]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2094823/New-York-leper-colony-Eerie-pictures-inside-abandoned-world-lost-island.html#ixzz1l9oqUNEf

Closed since 1963, North Brother Island used to house people with infectious diseases, including leprosy.

Stairwells strewn with debris and walls crumbling slowly to dust, it is the island that New York forgot for 50 years.
Now, in a series of extraordinarily eerie pictures, the lost world of North Brother - quarantine zone, leper colony and centre for drug addicts - has been brought back to life.
It is hard to believe that these echoing corridors and abandoned halls were home to hundreds of patients - or that a criss-cross of tree-lined avenues were once roads.
But the haunting quality of these pictures makes it easy to imagine that it was a place of indescribable misery, which one inmate compared to the notorious black hole of Calcutta.





As it was: North Brother Island circa 1937




Overgrown: The front of the tuberculosis building can be glimpsed through a tangle of bushes and trees







more pictures and background at link

[hifiguy]

1. Reminds me of the History Channel series

Life After People. Creepy, indeed.

[Warpy]

5. Mother Earth reclaims all this stuff astonishingly quickly

It's a little odd to see how much metal wasn't scrapped out from this place. Then again, in 1963 we weren't poor enough to have to scrap everything out.

[Quantess]

2. Interesting.

[Bruce Wayne]

3. Thanks for posting.

I may have a certain friend who might want to poking around there, next time he leaves Gotham to go visit New York.

[madaboutharry]

4. The history of quarantine and exile in this country fascinates me.

I recently finished a wonderful novel titled "Moloka'i" by Alan Bennert. It is well researched, historically accurate, and tells the story of a young girl send to Molokai in the late 1800's. The book tells the story of her entire life and the life lived by those suffering from leprosy in Hawaii in the late 19th through the mid-20th century.

A great non-fiction book, "The Colony" by John Tayman is also about Molokai. It is an amazing look at an important chapter in American history.

[jwirr]

6. Thank you. This is very interesting. Two things came into my mind. Why have they left it just

set there and decay. Is there a reason they have not developed this island? and why are the journals not in the possession of some historical society and possibly even open to the public for such things as genealogical research etc.?

One other thing. While this seems a terrible place in hindsight imagine what would have happened in that day when there were few medical alternatives if contagion had just been left to spread throughout NYC. I for one am very thankful for the many medical advances that made this history today.

[riverwalker]

7. Leper colony in the US 1960's

(we had one in the 1960's in Louisiana. Fascinating story here)
http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/The_True_Story_of_America_s_Official_Leper_Colony

Love in the Time of Leprosy

The life after death of José and Magdalena Ramirez


Everybody thought college would be a breeze for José Ramirez. A starter on his high school football team, he was voted most popular in his senior class of 1966, and he had a pretty girlfriend named Magdalena Santos, who was voted second-most popular in her class. In addition to his athletic and social prowess, he was no slouch in the classroom either. He won a scholarship to Laredo Junior College, as did Magdalena.
Their parents had come up far in the world, but Magdalena and José wanted to go them one better by getting an education and then seeing what they could do from there.

The only worry was that back when he was a tenth grader, José started to get sick. At first it seemed a mere nuisance, if a strange one. Beginning in his sophomore year, odd little lesions that resembled pimples started appearing on his legs and hands. He lost sensation in his forearms and fingers, so much so that he could soon, much to the astonishment of his brothers and sisters, sink a pin deep into his flesh without flinching. As high school progressed, the sores started popping up on his back. A dermatologist diagnosed them as "grease balls" and lanced them free of charge, but the sores returned. <more>

[vaberella]

8. Creepy to some...awesome to me. Restore and rebuild and turn into a museum not a high rise.

n/t