While I was in Zuccotti Park, I got an admittedly very unexpected call from one of the people I’d desperately tried messaging through the night, Yossi from Urban Odyssey, who was completely interested in spending a weekend at Kings Park! So we met in Brooklyn, waited a few hours for people we hoped might show up, and took the ride out there on the Long Island Railroad. Getting in was easier than we expected, with open doors on a building right in a state park!
I felt right at home among the peeling paint, and thoroughly amazed to be in my second asylum, and just a month after Willard.
We quickly figured out we weren’t alone… this critter built a nest in a window frame and watched our every move through the ward. We thought about trying to free him, but couldn’t find a way without risking a rabid raccoon bite.
The place wasn’t in the best condition, but we weren’t expecting much, and got far more than we could have imagined.
As different as we might have seemed at first, it turned out we have a lot in common – two recovering engineers out traveling and exploring. Admittedly, he’s gotten farther than me; I still hope I can live that way someday, escape from society and spend a year wandering around. Until then I’ll settle for this though.
Take only pictures, leave only… shitty URBEX tags? This is not how you urbex.
Neither is this.
Or this.
We stopped in the cafeteria for lunch. They didn’t have what I was looking for. I didn’t expect them to, so I brought my own food from Chinatown. (And no, it wasn’t the durian. That went straight into a dumpster on Bayard St after I took a few furtive bites!)
From there we continued on into the other buildings in the state park section, more of the older patient wards
These corridors connected one building to another, a sign of at least a partial Cottage Plan asylum.
We couldn’t get into this one. It was probably some sort of administrative building, but it’s in full view of the parking lot and park office.
These boards blocked off the next corridor, so it was time to search for alternate methods. It didn’t help that security was onto our case too and waiting for us outside this building.
We eventually got into the tunnels, and fought with the half-flooded labyrinth for over an hour, only to come back out right where we came in. At least the cop was gone… that being said, as soon as we got outside, there was no question that we’d just come out of the asylum, so we had that going against us.
By this time it was almost dark, so we wandered back into town for some pizza, and brought some beer back. After a bit more of a struggle than we’d hoped, and another failed bid at the tunnels, we decided to camp out on the roof of the Quads instead, got drunk on Brooklyn Pennant Ale, and passed out under the clear ocean sky!
