The Valley View Sanatorium (Preakness Hospital)

It was a cold fall day when I first found out about Preakness. A few photos and a vague sentence about  it's closure was all I had to go by. At the time I didn't have my drivers license, so I told my friend who usually drove us about the hospital. He forgot about it, until one day another one of my friends told him that he found a way in. It wasn't long before we loaded up the car and headed over.

Built in the 1920's as a WPA project, the main building originally served Passaic County as a tuberculosis sanatorium. The main building was designed by the famed Fred Wesley Wentworth, who is known for designing several of the greatest buildings in Passaic and Bergen Counties.

In the mid 1920's, tuberculosis was a major problem in America. It was a highly contaigous disease with a stiff rate of mortality. Essex County had the Essex Mountain Sanatorium, Morris, Camden, Middlesex, and Bergen County all had tuberculosis sanatoriums, and Hudson County was a few years away from building theirs too. Even the state had their own facility in Hunterdon County to treat the disease. Passaic County took the opertunity to construct their own.

The complex consisted of a number of buildings spread out across Oldham Road in the Preakness section of Wayne and a small piece in Haledon as well. The main campus was tucked away on 27 acres down a seperate driveway from the larger buildings which on a patch of land right on the roadway. The main campus consisted of the original building, power plant. a nurses residence and two doctors houses. The campus on Oldham also had its own power plant, which sat just behind the large building.

After new drugs came about to treat tuberculosis, there was no need to have such a large facililty anymore. The facility was turned into a county run nursing home. In 1987, a new wing was added to the left side of the Oldham stucture. It was also around this time that the nurses residence on the main campus was renovated into the Passaic County Youth Detention Facility. The facility was renamed the Preakness Healthcare Center.

The hospital buildings were all renamed. The main building was referred to as "Unit One". The large building on Oldham Road became "Unit Two" and the new wing they added on was "Unit Three". The hospital soon became a topic of contention for the local residents of the facility. The quarry next door, Braen Stone, made a deal to acquire nearly nine acres of hospital property in order to expand their operations. Local residents were understandably upset, as the constant blasting and other quarry operations were already too strong to ignore. The quarry was now going to be much closer to their houses

Despite the new wing being built only ninteen years earlier, the administraion of the hospital decided they wanted to replace Unit 2. The grounds around units two and three were cleared in 2006, and work began almost immediately to demolish the older of the two structures. The rest of the new hospital was built around Unit 3. Unit 1, the original hospital, remained open until all the patients were transferred to the new facility. The building oficially closed in 2009. When we first went, everything was still totally intact. The lights were still on, all of the equipment was still there, even the morgue cooler was still running. We felt that at any moment a nurse was going to come around the corner. That did not last long. Within a matter of months, water began leaking through the rubber roof, flooding the hallways and starting to feed what would become the worst mold we has ever seen. The brand new wheelchairs and other perfectly intact valuables were now soaked. Some of the chairs were even still wrapped up in plastic from the day they were unloaded from the trucks. Everything was quickly going to shit.

 We eventually found a way into the building that the police used as a forensic lab. Inside were crime scene photo's, evidence, collection kits, and tons of other unexpecteditems. We were used to the typical patient files and such being left behind. But nothing like this.

As we continued to visit Preakness, it continued to rapidly deteriorate.

One day as we were leaving, heading back to our car parked at the police academy behind the building, we popped out of the woods as usual. Right as it was too late to turn back, I saw the oh-so-familiar grill of a Sheriffs car. He saw us and quickly pulled up. He threw threats our way, saying that we were going to go to jail for trespassing. However, as there were no signs about trespassing and no fence around the property, we knew he couldn't really do that. We just played dumb, and eventually he let us go. It would be a few months before I went back to the hospital, and by the time I did it looked like this.

My asthma began to act up, and I told my girlfriend we needed to make it quick. We both left that day with upper respiratory infections. We both vowed that we were done with Preakness. I kept my word, only driving by a few more times a year. Then one day in 2015, I drove by to see it like this.

With the demolition of both Greystone and Marlboro state hospitals, we somehow lost track of the Preakness hospital. There was no protesting or fanfare. There was no citizen outrage. Preakness came into the world with a noble purpose, served thousands of people, and then was just demolished without any consideration.

Even the police building, which just two weeks earlier was still packed with stuff, was just a smokestack sticking out of the rubble.

The buildings were demolished by Braen Stone, in another expansion movement similar to the deal they made with Passaic County in the 1990s. The folks who lived around the hospital were outraged, as the quarry was already a nuisance to them. However, as is the case far too often these days, they were helpless in their pleas to local representatives. Passaic County saw a multi million dollar deal on the table and took it without any public input. They wouldn't care if the citizens left. If they do, that's just more land to sell to the quarry. I'm not sure how many people will remember Preakness, or how many people knew about it in the first place. Even people who grew up in town had no idea it was there. As with all abandoned locations, the end has to come one day. Whether it be renovation or demolition, most places will at least get a paragraph in the local paper. Preakness didn't. While it wasn't the greatest location New Jersey had to offer, anything this old should at least be considered for another future. Maybe one day we will wake up and realize this. But, the way things are going, by then it will probably be too late.

The Cooley Sanatorium/ Villa Maria Home for the Aged

Located in a quiet suburban town, this decrepit hospital complex was once was once a tuberculosis sanatorium. Doctor Justus Cooley, a graduate of the New York Eclectic Medical College, opened his homeopathic hospital in the newly incorporated boro of North Plainfield as a scenic getaway for residents afflicted with tuberculosis.

Listed in the fourth volume of Journal of the American Institute of homeopathy as opening in 1889, the hospital is one of the earliest existing sanatorium hospitals in the state of New Jersey. Though the inside of the buildings bare almost no trace of how they appeared in those days, the exterior definitely hints to the age of the complex.

It was only seven years earlier that the microbe "tubercle bacillus" was discovered by Dr. Robert Koch. The name was derived from the latin word "tuberculum" which just meant a small bump. Though the name was around long before the microbe was discovered, the name only began to stick then. Before this, the disease was commonly referred to as "consumption".

The sanatorium, which at this time was still just a small two story hospital structure and a small house, was closed by the time World War I started. In 1939 the land and buildings were sold to the Franciscan Servants of the Holy Child Jesus. They would go on to construct new buildings, including a building with a chapel and a three story dormitory directly behind the original sanatorium building. The hospital was renamed the "Villa Maria home for the Aged".

The 1950's saw a need for more beds at the hospital, so another dormitory was added to the front of the original building in 1953. In doing this, a portion of the original building was remodeled so heavily it was basically demolished, and not much more can be said for the inside of the remaining portion of it.

More and more small additions were added to the main building, including a small portion with a false stone veneer added to the back in the early 1960's. Another seperate dormitory building was built for staff next to Dr. Cooley's humble home.

Finally, the most modern section of the hospital was built on the left of the original building in the 1970's. From what I can gather, it was a hospice ward. There was also a library added to the wing adjoining the original building 

It is around this time that the original section would see its final renovation.

Some of the original brick buildings were covered in stucco and painted over in yellow at some time later in the hospital's history. Despite all of the work and improvement done to the complex, the nursing home closed in 2002.

All of the buildings were vacated, save for the caretakers house on the property. Though no operations were held at the facility at this time, the sisters would continue to evade taxes until 2005, when their non profit status was revoked. The nuns would try and argue this, lying about income and hiding assets from the IRS. However, a lien was a placed against the property in 2007, with the sisters owing almost one and a half million dollars in back taxes for the blighted property.

After this ruling, the real scandal began to come out over the property. Collection notices were sent to the abandoned Villa Maria property, which time after time were returned because the property was represented by a group in Morristown. The town should have been aware of this, as the addresses of both the existing Villa Maria in Pennsylvania and the legal representatives in Morristown were on file. OPRA requests to see these documents, however, were rejected by the borough clerk. More and more requests for comment were rejected by borough officials, leading the citizens of the town to believe that illegal deals were made to encourage development of the property.

The outrage of the citizens didn't just stop there either. Several hundred people spoke out against the development of the property, asserting that the buildings should be saved and the land preserved as open space; something the borough lacks entirely. The local newspaper received a handful of letters, all saying the same thing.

As the shady deals began to come to light, the buildings on the property continued to rot away. Numerous local kids had found their way inside the buildings, smashing holes in the walls and leaving graffiti on every spot they could find. Though this played right into the owners hands, they were forced try and keep people out by putting up plywood and "no trespassing" signs.

While everyone was waiting for something to happen with the property, several conservationists reached out to the DEP about the property. It seemed that the 17 acre Villa Maria parcel was home to several uncommon species of trees, some dating back two hundred years.

With all of this information getting stirred up, the owners were getting anxious about their investment. They insisted that one structure on the property was not within the defined flood zone. Therefore a DEP permit should not be necessary in order to begin demolition on the building. However, concerns about asbestos and other hazardous materials played a factor as well.

Strides were made to get the Villa Maria hospital buildings on the state register of historic places, but the state denied the application. They cited lack of cooperation from the owners of the property as the main reason for declining to register the buildings. They did mention, however, that the buildings could still make it on the register if the boro amended their own historic preservation laws for Washington Park to include the hospital as another historic entity.

Unfortunately the boro stated that this was not really the case. They mentioned that if a majority of the owners of a property rejected the designation that there was nothing the boro could do. Since the Villa Maria property was under the sole ownership of a private entity, there is little hope that any such designation would take place. They also added that even if the buildings were added to the NJRHP, they still could be demolished in their entirety.

A representative of the DEP Historic Preservation Office was contacted about the ongoing struggle over the property. He gave a presentation about the property to the residents, in which he insisted that the boro could get the building on the register by adding it onto the "Master Plan" for the town. To do this, a Historic Preservation component needed to be added to the plan. While the buildings could still be demolished in that scenario, it would become much harder to get the proper permits.

As citizens worked on their efforts to preserve the property, an application to build age restricted condos were initially approved in 2007. This was done despite loud and consistent outcry at the planning board meetings. However, the process was halted by Somerset County.

Another issue that generated fear over the fate of the property is the conflict of interest between the Environmental Commission and the Boro's leadership. The chair of the Environmental Commission, Harry Allen, is none other than the husband of the mayor. He has refused to recuse himself on the matter, despite his wife's documented position in favor of building on the property. In accordance with this, the department has objected to repeated attempts from concerned citizens to do their jobs and conduct environmental studies on the property. Fearing the possibility of finding something that would spur development from the area, the commission has elected to ignore this issue entirely. The mayor has gone on record claiming that the boro was denied a grant and therefore cannot do any studies. This is wildly untrue though, as the state environmental commission provides guidelines on how volunteers can conduct the studies themselves. No grant money needed.

In 2008, the property changed hands. It was sold to Watchung Hills at North Plainfield, a limited liability corporation. A site plan came forth, showing extensive tree removal throughout the property. In addition, a majority of the hospital was to be demolished. The demolition included the original Cooley Sanatorium buildings, several of the buildings added under the ownership of Villa Maria, and the caretakers house as well.

Source

Since 2008, almost nothing had been published about the hospital. The buildings had been almost completely boarded up on the first floor, and since then the vandalism had somewhat subsided. Still they continued to rot with time. What we had here was a classic case of "demolition by neglect", where property owners intentionally ignore structural problems and vandalism until the building is too far gone to save. 

A pair of large fires in 2017 decimated the most historic portions of the campus, which sealed the properties fate. The campus was completely demolished in 2020. The township got their way, nd plans call for residential development on most of the property. While the buildings may be forgotten, the details of greed and deceit from all parties involved shouldn't be.

The Essex County Isolation Hospital

I remember passing by the Essex County Isolation Hospital as a child. By then the campus only had a few buildings left, but the one that caught my eye was the 8 story children's building which stood proudly across the large lawn at the corner of Franklin and Belleville. The structure was quite imposing , made of yellow brick and limestone. The building was still in use, or at least half of it was, by the Garden State Cancer Research Center. As soon as I got home, I researched everything I could about the hospital.

Buildings started to show up on this campus as early as 1905. These structures were designed by the Newark firm of Hurd & Sutton, the principal architects responsible for the Essex County Overbrook Hospital. The county needed a hospital to take care of numerous infectious diseases that were infecting residents of Essex. They already had a psychiatric hospital as well as a tuberculosis sanatorium in what was then the countryside, but the isolation hospital had to be built near the city of Newark.

Before long, the campus was becoming more and more crowded. In addition, the children's ward was insufficient for the demand. In 1929, the crown jewel of the campus was built. The towering edifice was occupied before long, and functioned for decades before the dwindling population of the campus forced the buildings to close.

After the demolition of the Essex Mountain Sanatorium, the county set their eyes on the vacant complex of buildings in Belleville for condominiums. After 3 years of remediation and securing the proper credentials, the county demolished most of the brick buildings in the back of the campus. Two structures in the back of the campus were spared, and renovated into office buildings, and the children's building was occupied by the Garden State Cancer Research Center. Well, half of it was.

The group occupied the administration area and the right wing, leaving the left wing to rot. After a friend of mine posted some photos of the interior, I had to go see the place for myself. After finding a way inside, I was taken aback by the peeling paint and rusting hospital equipment. This was one of the first buildings I ever wandered into, so my friend and I spent almost an hour cautiously walking around. As I mentioned before, the building was still partially active. There were disused floors on the active sides, but they were all totally stripped.

It didn't take very long to finish seeing the wing, so we headed out. We were determined to come back to the hospital at some point, but I didn't get my chance for a while. The cancer center declared bankruptcy in 2011, and was forced to vacate the building. So now, once again, the entire building was empty. Plans were made to visit the building soon after it's closure. Unfortunately we got busy, and a number of break ins and fires kept the building sealed for the longest time. The building eventually sold for 3.7 million dollars. I knew it was time to go back, before I lost my chance forever.

It took a visit from a friend from Idaho to get me back to the hospital. The new owners went around and sealed up the building, but a door they missed swung open we tried it. It was bittersweet walking through the building, seeing all the vandalism that wasn't there during our last visit. After spending some time on the roof, watching the police pull somebody over below, we decided to head out.

After posting some of my shots on an online urban exploration forum, a former patient (who had found the site through photos somebody else took) began to tell the stories of terror and abuse he was subjected to at the hospital. He even tried to escape the hospital at one point, to no avail. Hearing him tell his stories sent a chill down my spine; I had walked the same hallways he is talking about, but without the fear he experienced.

A few weeks after my second visit inside, I decided to drive by the hospital to see what had come of the new ownership. I was surprised and a little saddened to see the entire hospital sealed up, with full dumpsters sitting in the driveway. As I watched the owner toss items out of the building and into the dumpsters below, I felt a calm come over me, knowing that the building was going to be seeing new life, as opposed to all of the other county owned properties which ended up in a landfill. The hospital is being transformed, like everything else around here, into condos. Only time will tell what happens to the building now, I can only hope it is kind.