Maryland Daily PhotoEvery Week Day a New Picture from MD

Here’s one last view of the hospital.    This is the back of one of the buildings, but I like this picture becasue at this distance you can barely tell the building is abandoned.  However, if you look just a little bit closer, the clues are there. 

Well, nobody guessed at yesterday’s post, but I’ll tell you the answer anyway.  It is the Glenn Dale hospital in Prince George’s county.  The hospital was established for the treatment of tuberculosis.  Back in the day Prince George’s was a sufficient distance from the city to be considered an adequate retreat for the sick.  As time went by, TB became less and less of a relevant disease until the point when the hospital became useless. It was eventually abandoned, with much of its equiptment and furniture still in the buildings.  It served other uses for a while, including a police training grounds.  In fact there is a sign next to the one in the picture which warns visitors not to enter as a live police exercise is going on.   Of course that exercise ended almost a decade ago, and without a purpose since then,  the buildings of the hospital complex have fallen victim to vandals and to general rot.  

Sadly, I have little more to show you becasue I have actually abided by the sign shown here. I do really like this picture despite its flaws becasue I really enjoy that lampost with its lantern turned to the side.  The campus is full of these destroyed posts.   I wish I could show you more. 

  Security there isn’t tight, but it is present.  There are police monitors and there’s even a security trailer on site.   The stablity of the buildings is in question, and the presence of asbestos adds to the risks a visitor would face.  So I truely believe that the signs are there for the visitor’s benefit, not for that of the buildings themselves.