Warehouse Op
Woodlands Hospital 1
Shaughnessy Hospital
Woodlands Hospital 2
Riverview Hospital
Chudcoon Drain
Other Distractions

DrainsofmyCity
Wraiths

Mission: Woodlands Hospital 1

(Photos open in new window when clicked)

Of morgues and movie sets.

I had been reluctant to check out the Woodlands hospital at first, but at Jester's insitence, we took a drive to check it out. From the second I laid eyes on the buildings, as we drove past on the freeway, I almost fell in love with the place. So many old, wondeful, institutional buildings, spread about on wooded grounds- it was beautiful. Unfortunately, as we watched, workmen were busily tearing down one of the buildings, next to another that had been leveled completely. Saddened by this sight of destruction, we decided to enter another one of the buildings nearby, in the interest of documenting it for posterity.
We wandered around the building for a little while, searching for an entrance. Not finding any easy ways, we went in the hard way instead. A interesting side note- most of the exterior doors were equipped with an odd locking system. A normal door knob sat next to a big, keyhole shaped opening- most of these had metal devices inserted into them, which were padlocked from the inside. In order to open the doors, you would have required a large, special key- after removing the metal bar inserted into the keyhole. Anyway, the doors were quite secure.
Inside, I was suprised to see fresh paint, and some odd-looking extras. Jester informed me that many of the Woodlands buildings were now used as film/TV sets- which explained why the entire first floor seemed to have been converted into a faux police station. In one room, a police lineup stood in the open, across from a small viewing room. In another, a row of plexiglass partitions separated the visitors and the interned. Everything was terribly fake- all plywood and fresh paint, but it would probably have seemed quite real on TV. The kicker was when we came to the end of the hall, where a fake wall section stood open. I joked that had we entered from that side of the building, we would probably have wondered why the main hallway was so short.

[PHOTO] - Jester in the police lineup
[PHOTO] - Another set
[PHOTO] - "Will you wait for me?" "No."
[PHOTO] - Nutricious, delicious, possibly lead-containing peeling paint.
[PHOTO] - Bathtub-o-rama

In this area, the rooms had bee made into fake jail cells. I went to open one of the cell doors, and to my surprise, it moved with almost no effort! The doors were built of wood, painted, and hung off flimsy hinges- whereas I was expecting the real, heavy iron doors I'd seen in some other locations. Interestingly, all the exterior windows of the building were equipped with actual metal bars, which effectively prevented both breaking in or out. The film people, sensing these actual metal window bars weren't enough, had installed fake bars overtop of them- in one room, we counted three sets of bars over the windows!

[PHOTO] - In the room with the triple-barred windows.
[PHOTO] - Jester, behind bars in the fake white jail.
[PHOTO] - Down the hallway- the fake wall is in the left midground.

Amused by the film crews' constructs, we took a long, winding ramp into the basement. The entire building was quite wheelchair friendly, equipped with ramps and such; since a number of patients over the years had no doubt spent much of their lives in them. The basement was pretty dark, with only small amounts of daylight filtering in. Several large, empty rooms sat glumly around the main hallway. We found the main boiler room, which had a small door that led into a large hollow space with a dirt floor. This space was located underneath the huge ramp that led up to the front door- this ramp was apparently hollow.

[PHOTO] - Jester in a basement room.
[PHOTO] - Another empty basement room.

Back in the main basement hallway, Jester found several large flat display cases mounted on the wall. Inside the cases were photos, mostly group shots, taken of the actual patients that had resided at one time in the facility. Many had bad water damage, and it kinda creeped me out to be able to look and see all these faces that had called the hospital home.

[PHOTO] - Another dark basement room.
[PHOTO] - It's a red door! And Jester's ghost!

Just after this, we stumbled onto a major discovery: The Morgue! The medium-sized room was lit thanks to a single window, and was covered in green hospital tiles, reminding me of an operating theatre. In one corner stood a shiny, barrel-shaped metal sterilizer. Across from this, tucked away in a corner, were three body freezers. Stacked one on top of the other, they resembled some sort of strange refrigerator. Jester made a horrible racket when pulled one of the body trays part way out to get a photo. I wondered to myself how many dead people those trays had held over the years.

[PHOTO] - Body freezer! Body Trays!
[PHOTO] - Sterilizer unit.

Some other small rooms adjoined the morgue area, but none proved as interesting. We wandered back through the basement, snapping a few photos here and there. Since we'd been through the entire place, we decided to leave, leaving a convenient door open for any return trips. We walked out, and since security was due on shift soon, decided we'd come back some other day to do another building.