Exploring a Massive Abandoned Kirkbride Asylum 

Kirkbride's were designed in an echelon shape (bat wings) to allow maximum exposure to fresh air and sunlight in each ward. Every "tier" was a separate ward, with the most dangerous patients at the end. The central building held Administration offices and an apartment for the hospital superintendent. Initially the hospitals functioned as a small city, patients produced food, clothing and some even had their own fire departments. It wasn't until the early - mid 20th century that mental hospitals became warehouses of horror. Random Fact: Greystone Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey (demolished) was the largest building in the U.S. until the Pentagon was completed. Edit: Greystone was in NJ not Penn.

I'm sorry but I couldn't help but bust out laughing at the "Psychiatric Help: 5 Cents" sign. I guess Charlie Brown must been a patient at this asylum??

Such a beautiful building! As a teen, I spent just shy of a year in a mental health facility. I was given the Rorschach test, which was extremely antiquated for 2001. I also encountered many clinically insane people every day, some of whom were allowed to walk the facility alone, and some with chains and leather cuffs securing each ankle and each wrist together. It was a total mindfuck, and I probably left more screwed up than when I went in.

There is another Kirkbride asylum in Weston, West Virginia, called the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. It's actually the largest hand-cut stone building in the US. It closed around 1994, and it is still mostly intact. The owners are a little wackadoo, but they will let certain people walk through and explore it.

Dodgy floors, risk of harm or death, send the new guy first lol

"Hey kids!" "Want to go see where mommy and daddy first met?!" This place was so fantastic, and creepy.... It's great that you were able to film it before it's torn down. Thanks guys!

After seeing the desolation and ruin of this unsalvageable building it would be great to see historic photos of it in its heyday. Most of these giant institutions were partially self sustaining with dairy cows, pigs, beef cattle, and massive vegetable gardens. Patients who spent years or the rest of their lives there could work on the farms and enjoyed it. (No TV back then, let alone cable.) For many patients it was a safe environment that protected them a world with which they could not cope. And yes, I know the horror stories and I am sure maybe there were wards for patients who could not go out, but in my opinion this world was destroyed beginning in the 30s and gathering speed in the 40s and 50s with shock treatments, lobotomies, and psychotropic drugs. Those drugs, based on my experience with psychiatric patients, did little unless strong enough to put the person in a stupor, but they were used as an excuse to declare hospitalization was no longer necessary and the patients could be returned to communities and just buy a monthly prescription. Look around you. Did that work? Are they better off? Another legislative crime was to order that patients couldn't work at farming or livestock, etc. even if they wanted to do so. When that happened you saw the halls full of people sitting in chairs with little interest and the institutions had to start buying what was grown before and then everyone said that the institutions were too expensive to maintain, so the people sitting in halls were tossed out with a pill bottle to roam the streets. "Community Care" was one of the greatest propaganda panaceas ever fed to a willing public.

Judging from the clothes/dolls/tech left in the asylum, it was probably abandoned around the early-mid 80's, I think. "Amusing Ourselves to Death" was published in '85.

I like how they don’t have the jump scares. I can get my abandoned building fix without scaring my self half to death.

The criminally insane patients were housed furthest away from the middle. So it all depends on the placement of the wings. The Kirkbride floor plan wasn't meant to confuse patients. The floor plan was that of stacked linear pattern to allow sufficient air flow and sunlight since Dr. Kirkbride believed it helped with healing mental illnesses.

"You kids better eat your vegetables or I'm gonna make you spend the night in an abandoned insane asylum!" -Mom of the year 2016

Continuity of care refers to a patient's path to recovery. It's important that there are no gaps in treatment. Inpatient care - outpatient care (partial hospitalization, Intensive outpatient) - family/individual therapy - follow ups with docs, etc. I work in a large psychiatric hospital. It's not abandoned and it's still spooky to walk the halls. Great work guys, love your channel!

After watching dozens of your videos. I've come to find it surprising when a basement isn't flooded.

my great-grandfather was a patient here! I know a good bit of history about the place if anyone is curious.

Wow, 2016 Mum of the Year contender there! She was probably a patient there when she was young, that at least would explain why she's crazy enough to think its okay to take children into a place as dangerous as that. Great vid again guys!

I wish I could get as excited with a smile on my face as Bryan does when he finds old Christmas decorations LOL.

The iconic red dome is now gone and multiple collapses due to the 3 alarm fire...very sad. Thankfully you documented this Historic Columbia SC Landmark.

Great video guys! @ 3:35, that is a Magnetic Tape Drive... When a disk drive the size of your refrigerator held 5 megabytes, MagTape was The Plan, Man..... Circa maybe 1985 or 1986 or so.... Prehistoric to you guys, but back in the day, medical records & what have you, was all on tape....

i'd always love to see how these places looked inside before they were just left like that

Does anyone else get chills while watching these videos?

This place reminds me a lot o the old Overbrook hospitals that were in NJ. Long gone now, but I still have a ton of pictures of them. Also, I ran into more than one parent bringing kids there. They had relatives that lived there as a patient and the parents were bringing their kids there to try and explain what happened to them. Pretty sad story to hear.

Thank you for actually doing research unlike Josh. "Oh this building must have been used for hiding aliens." No, dude. Just look stuff up before just speculating

I work in a kirkbride The Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Thank you guys for showing these buildings.

My old high school was originally supposed to be a prison but, they changed it last minute! So it’s super confusing and hardly has any windows. Also creepy random stairways, sooooooo yeah!

#chairsjustchillin

i actually live about 10 minutes away from this asylum and my grandmother use to work there. its so difficult to get into now though since theres a stadium right by it; it also takes away so much of the spooky appearance. love that i finally got to see what was inside!

I know you guys have started to spread out with your explorations. I found a massive ammunition plant in Indiana. I understand that is a long and expensive journey, but it's hundreds of acres of abandoned labs, test facilities, warehouses, factories, and power plants. I feel like security is high, considering that there are roads on the property and it is government owned. The environmental hazards are high, so bring respirators. There is a large recorded history of the location, so plenty of video content. Again, it is quite a trip, but it definitely appears to be interesting. Maybe give it a shot 🎥

My great great grandfather had schizophrenia, he heard voices threatening his son and his daughter He was nuts and couldn’t sleep or eat and they told him to hurt people but he knew he wasn’t going to ever get well. He took his own life in Weston in 1887, September 6th. He wrote diaries and he did sketches. He was a monster and he was wild, his name was Stephen Burns. I believe he is buried there on the property as there is a cemetery there. Nobody has found a headstone if there is one.

It's sad how all the patients personal items were just left and no one cared to give them back

they need to be more careful. These damaged floors are super unpredictable and dangerous. I fell through a roof in an old building that had holes like that and ended up fracturing my skull and rupturing my eardrum losing 80% of hearing from the fall through.

I get so excited when I get a notification from this channel!!! I stop everything I'm doing lol

Crazy old building. The floors are very unstable with all the water damage. I am glad you guys didn't get hurt in this place. Have you ever thought about heading out West? Washington State has lots of old buildings to venture into. Need help with a list on where to go?

Mental hospitals always give me the heebie-jeebies. Abandoned or active ones. Great video. Interesting to see. Shame you didn't find any straight jackets.

Update is that this building is likely going to be preserved and repurposed as part of the redevelopment plan for the old state hospital complex.

OMG THAT'S MY CITY!!! I'm so sad I never got to explore this place before they refurbished it into apartments and a stadium. As much urbex as I did in Columbia, I never had the chance to get in there. I'm glad you guys filmed it so in depth! This video makes me so happy!!

One thing I love about the Proper People is that even though their channel is growing, their content hasn't changed in any way...it's still just the same as it was from the beginning.

That bear is a blast from the past. Mine is in a box in the garage. Probably held onto it for 30+ years now.

You guys need to make a trip to explore the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, TX. 14 stories, built 1928. Shuttered in early 1970s. Supposedly haunted. Will need to be stealthy to find a way in without cops seeing you. It's right in the middle of town. Was famous resort destination in 30s and 40s, etc. Many famous folks stayed there, Presidents, actors, even Bonnie and Clyde.

It's a crying shame that it's being demolished. Here in the UK we have societies & such who fight to keep historic buildings from being flattened, it doesn't always work as the money hungry developers often get their way.

you should come to massachusetts, there are tons of abandoned building such as tire factories and wire companies that were built in the 1840s

The big guy (Baby Huey) was like a ghost of days past. This was when I feel that the Proper People were at their best.

6:50 See, Bethesda? That's how you do floor collapses and debris. Not just floors disappearing and debris coming from nowhere.

Also random point, and you may have already learned this by now, but those locks you zoomed in on early in the video speculating that they were "heavy locks" are just normal locks from the era. I live in Massachusetts and have seen many many old doors that still have those in place, though unused. In one of my previous apartments, every single door had an old timey key lock like that. Kitchen door, bathroom door, closet door, all of them had those locks. Fun fact, I read that they were apparently "easy" to pick and was one of the reasons deadbolts became common place because those were much harder to pick.

I was briefly a prison guard. Unfortunately, the U.S, began shutting down its asylums in the 70's and it's lead to an increase of incarnation of mentally impaired people.

How are you guys not at 1 million subscribers yet? The proper people are definitely the go to for exploring

This is the most Fallout shit I think I've seen in an urbex, by the way. The area with the collapsed floor looked straight out of one of the games.

Makes me sad about all the resources and labor put into building such a huge pretty building , every detail, and now it's just getting demolished

I just came across this video, thought you guys would like to know that unfortunately there was a fire recently that destroyed the tower and a large portion of the building. I am happy I got to see your video of it on the inside. New subscriber, great videos. 👏🏻👍🏻

Hey guys, that is a Wang. It has something to do with word processing. Years before Microsoft Word. I worked on one of the later models of the system.

Kinda insane that you guys might have the last video evidence of a lot of these places.

These buildings and courtyards are absolutely beautiful (on the outside)!

Ive visited this place many many times as I live in West Columbia... Ive never been able to go in during the day because of so much heavy police activity and have had to run out 3 times. Thank you, THANK YOU for getting this amazing footage of the place in daylight unlike my videos haha. Props to you guys.

New subscriber from🇨🇦. Seeing all these beautiful buildings left to ruin or ending up demolished makes me sad, I don't know why they're not preserved & made into historical buildings as they're old but beautiful.

SO glad y'all did this! I've been searching for a inside look of this very building and I'm stoked I recognized it!! Thank you!!!

That would be cool if y'all visited a abandoned water park like Schlitterbahn

Just a rando update; I was there last month (early Dec 2018), and they've knocked down some of the smaller outbuildings, and they've placed all the furniture in a few rooms. I wasn't able to get to the one section with several collapsed floors on top of one another. It looked like scrappers REALLY got to it even in just the short 3 months it had been since I was last inside. I think they're renovating it, but I can't be sure, just because of the condition it's in; as I said, currently it looks even worse than when y'all explored it right here.

In old 1800s and even early 1900s structures. If you see plumbing, or electrical. It has already been modernized several times. You see surface pipes and conduits and things because it wasn't built with them in mind. Even up into the 1930s you'll see places that were built brand new for gas or oil lighting, and no original plumbing or electrics. A lot of these kinds of places have been modernized repeatedly each time a creature comfort became common to expect. Just because it was technically available didn't always mean it got installed or considered in planning. A lot of the stairways in this one in particular you see, were added after the fact, probably for newer safety and code compliance. That probably was a chapel that got subdivided for different needs. This is part of what makes it expensive to renovate and use old structures, too many alterations already. Offices is about all they can be anymore. It is also why it is a shame so much modern architecture lacks character or originality. No real sense or art these days.

Shout out to the construction team for being cool 👏

Kirkbride design is still in use near me. Called Western State Hospital in Hopkinsville, KY. Once held over 2,000 patients, now houses 225. The building is definitely the same design and eerie looking when driving by.

3:36 Although it's hard to tell, the unknown piece of equipment looks like a WANG computer that used reel to reel magnetic tape for memory storage.

The thing the clay goes into, after you make your bowl, vase, etc., that is an 'annealer.' We used them at the glass blowing studio. They allow the glass/clay/metal to slowly slowly slowly cool down, so it won't crack or break. The slow cooling process strengthens the item. Worth a lot of $$, about $500, used. Too bad you couldn't take it out of there.

Wow! That was an enormous building! Great job u guys! U are definitely becoming one of my favorite explorers on RU-vid!

The Shutter Island comment was a nice dad joke. 👌🏼😂

This was amazing. Subbed. I have a couple ideas on how to make these videos much better. One is to provide a picture overlay one and a while of what certain parts of the building looked like before. Another idea is to have a map overlay of where you guys are located in the building and\or what certain parts of the building were for. even if it's just a simple sat map. I also love to hear as much historical information on the sites while you go through them. Great production value. Keep up the awesome work.

Love the shot of the room at 4:30 and the office cubicles @ 5:53 don't see quality and detail like that anymore. such a shame they didn't have any architectural salvage companies come in pull some of this great stuff out of here! ☹

it would be terrifying if the construction workers just forgot you were there and started to demolish the place xD

It's so refreshing to see someone making great exploring videos without putting themselves in the spotlight, especially when exploring asylums. I hate RU-vidrs with forced positivity, and this guy is the ideal RU-vid explorer for me.

I've run into families and elderly couples several times at an abandoned hospital about two and a half hours north of this asylum. I was a little surprised the first time I ran into an actual family.. they ended up being in a photo for the final I was working on for my Photo 1 class at the time.

I absolutely love Kirkbride asylums and their history. Thank you!

imagine being in there when that floor collapsed

It's always so sad and disgusting to see the damage done to these places by others. Natural decay is one thing but to go in a building and just destroy it for the sake of destroying it is disgusting.

Spent a lot of time in the asylum, and go there periodically. I'm from Columbia {the town it's located} and have been all up and down that place and the surrounding buildings. Love it there.

i worked in a converted Kirkbride in Dayton, Oh. Now called 10 Wilmington Place, retirement community.. They were a client of mine actually. The basement remains fairly untouched with the original railroad tracks for transporting coal carts to stock the fireplaces throughout. The mental health facility is now behind the original location. Always super interesting to explore the building, especially the basement.

I've been binge watching for a week. I am 55! Damn Kids. ;-)

i worked in a converted Kirkbride in Dayton, Oh. Now called 10 Wilmington Place, retirement community.. They were a client of mine actually. The basement remains fairly untouched with the original railroad tracks for transporting coal carts to stock the fireplaces throughout. The mental health facility is now behind the original location. Always super interesting to explore the building, especially the basement.

I feel like im watching a TV Show, you guys are amazingly professional. Every video gets better and better.

Looking out at the courtyard with the stretcher definitely gives Silent Hill vibes, very creepy.

Am I the only one that binge watches their videos... ? 😂😂😂 I love them both ssooo much! I've watches all their videos like 20 times each 😂😂😂

The doors that "sealed off" wings are overhead fire doors. There is usually a chain arrangement with a temperature sensitive link that will release the mechanism, lowering the door. Most likely vandals tampered with the chains, dropping the doors.

the only thing that kept coming to mind while watching this was Kit Walker and Lana Winters from AHS: Asylum

Hey I just wanted to say what you guys are doing is really cool. You've captured the beauty of this building. Even though it had be destroyed you have managed to immortalized it in time.

A WANG computer tape drive! Martin on the Simpson once wore a shirt that said "Wang Computers".

Been in this building a million times and it’s amazing! So crazy y’all went in something i’ve explored too!

I was a little jealous of the bear at 7:50, not gonna lie. Haha

Oh hell yeah! I wrote a grad thesis on this place back in college. I also grew up not too far from here. This video is giving me a lot of feels.

Lol thanks for a new video and greetings from germany :D I love your high quality and the background storys!

I’ve noticed in so many of the abandon buildings the paint on the walls and ceiling. Why does the paint curl up and crumble in some rooms/areas and not others? So creepy... Thanks for taking the risks, I love watching you guys explore!

That's...a little odd for a family to do...I could see if the kids were older but judging by the video...they were like what 5-6? What the hell is the mother thinking...

this is in columbia south carolina i went there recently and there is a lot more security. they have a giant billboard showcasing how many arrests they’ve made in the past 30 days at that place.

I'd pay to explore a place with you guys

I love to do what the proper people do, I love absolutely love haunted and abandoned places 😍😍😍😍

Kinda terrified of what mental state that woman with her kids is like. God the little ones were so polite and innocent looking when you passed them the second time. The fact that none of them were crying because of the creepy atmosphere is also surprising however? I just I'm lost for words.

I'd be worried about falling through the ceiling, and asbestos! That is why I will watch the videos, and just enjoy through a screen. :)

Should have called the police about those children. That was terrible.

the railing at 6:58 makes a smiley face

I really enjoyed this video. I looked up the history of the Kirkbride asylums and his philosophy of treatment. It was very interesting. I am old enough to remember when there were still stay asylums. I lived in Georgia and there was one called Milledgeville. A very scary place!

I think you guys are incredible. Your videos are fantastic. I love ancient buildings because of the history behind these structures. If these buildings could talk you both could write a fabulous book!

Man I LOOOOOOOOOOVE Kirkbride asylums. They're disappearing too fast. :(

3:37 : That looks like the tape storage unit for a Wang minicomputer. Check out Wang Laboratories - they were a huge company starting in the 50:ies and all the way to the 90:ies but I reckon they got killed off by the PC revolution since they mostly did minicomputers and such. 12:53 : Looks like accessories for a Wang 4430 terminal unit (that is, not a standalone computer but the machine used to connect to and interface with the minicomputer that was located elsewhere).

When I was five years old, I learned to ride a bicycle on the grounds of an abandoned lunatic asylum.