If there is an asylum or hospital that could have been an inspiration for horror movies, surely Byberry Mental Hospital could be that place.
This is a huge hospital located in Philadelphia, which during its story saw thousands of patients with mental problems enter. And it became famous for the horrible treatments that the patients said they suffered, and if it were not because a worker took numerous photographs of the dark events, it would surely have lasted more years open.
The construction was so big, it took almost half a century for the more than 50 buildings that made up the hospital to be completed. And within them were mixed dormitories, nurseries, kitchens, laundries, a chapel and a mortuary, apart from the administration offices. It was such a large place that within its walls they managed to house a little more than 7,000 patients, at the time with the largest population of the place.
However, it´s curious that in the beginning the place was not a hospital, but a work farm for the mentally ill, it was until after it became an asylum, finally in 1907 it was consolidated as the Byberry Mental Hospital that brought so much horror to the world.
There were so many people who were there, that the conditions for the patients became poor and terrible, just like the treatment of the workers. There are photographs of patients tied with straps on their beds.
It was so much the carelessness, that the workers left the entire areas without any care, leaving the patients of those buildings practically abandoned.
In the 90’s the closing of its operations was declared, when the truth was discovered.
The scary thing is that the neighbors closest to the place (despite being miles away) gathered thousands of signatures so that the building was collapsed, according to them by the strange presence that the dark and abandoned place gave off.
Would you dare to go?