Exploring the Abandoned Allentown State Hospital - Amazing Asylum Architecture!

[Music] in today's episode we're exploring one of the most magnificent abandoned asylums we've ever set foot in the allentown state hospital this psychiatric institution opened in 1912 and served the population of eastern pennsylvania for over a century until finally shutting its doors in 2010 now with demolition threatening the historic building we're venturing inside to discover what's left join us as we explore [Music] so [Music] do a portion of this video was sponsored by nordvpn get 68 off a two-year plan plus an extra month for free at nordvpn.com proper people [Music] in front of the hospital demolition workers were mingling and protesters hoping to save the building were on the street behind the hospital however we were in the middle of making our approach this shit's a little spiky we had tried to visit allentown state hospital several times since its abandonment but security was always tight now the time might finally be right you ready [Music] all right so we've wanted to come in here for years finally made it inside now how long can we stay for is the question without getting caught oh [ __ ] these hallways are incredible cameras everywhere one right there staring at us yeah those are new cameras too are they yes how new um probably installed with the other cameras outside that we got caught on last yeah but they're not watching them anymore not new guys in life they just put them into like new as in post abandoned new plaster coming off the walls look at this arch here we go we got stairs it's tile these are glazed bricks they're not just tile yeah yeah this tile thing is awesome in this staircase yo wait look at this staircase is this for the chapel it's like two generations of staircases right next to each other oh wow oh there's all names on the bottom of the stairs and it looks old too yeah oh is that like the brand of these metal panels i think so because they all say saks abbott construction company roof oh we're outside there's another door it's amazing it really isn't oh [ __ ] this is the auditorium oh my god i love how weird the layouts are in these old buildings oh my gosh this is incredible though it's been a long time since i've seen a nice asylum auditorium that wasn't vandalized look at these light fixtures one's missing yeah you know what i think i've seen a photo recently of it there oh they found us [Music] this auditorium is the largest room in the hospital and it's located right in the middle of the sprawling complex for decades this room would have been filled with life as staff put on plays and sang karaoke to entertain patients but today it sits as eerily quiet as the rest of the asylum its crumbling walls giving in to time someone we know was here just a week ago and these light fixtures were still on the walls and that curtain was open on the theater so they're definitely in the process of taking stuff out of here that's pretty cool why would they light towards the audience it's supposed to go further okay they're probably motorized yeah do you want to see if we can open this yeah i do probably look nicer all right let's open that the rope is right here all the way a little bit more than that it's not going to stay but you're not going to get it to stay are you it's really the counterweight is missing some how was it up just a week ago though so somebody cut the thing that was tying it because there's this pulley here that says surgical room ooh so there's going to be one of those somewhere i know that's empty in there this room has some high ceilings could this be a surgical room it could be it has all the sterile tiling oh this is definitely a surgical room 100 100 a surgical room [Music] it's very bright in here [Music] this room is purple oh check it out they even put a [ __ ] camera in here why that's so weird [Music] this place is covered in cameras and it says it's a bosch camera but i don't see a wire running to it and if they put them up like there'd be a conduit i don't know there's some crazy colors in this place wow this is a beautiful hallway look at the building on both sides it's [ __ ] cool last time we were here we didn't get in they were still mowing the grass out there yeah it actually feels a lot more abandoned now look at these doors they're curved and this frosted glass this is old oh my god what a stairwell dude holy cow god it's basically near the top of it right now [Music] detail on every single one of the posts on the railing it's incredible wow this is amazing the walls are adorable it's closed now yes this is probably the best asylum lobby that we've ever been look up to the skylight's blown out [Music] imagine how much time it must have taken to carve all this wood and it's all just going to be torn down like it's nothing [Music] so much marble just plain marble and carved wood everywhere this place would have been shiny what if it was clean yeah just all stone this room has a lot of decay these sight lines are pretty crazy you can see for so far there's a locked door he said yeah it says locked on it just keep door locked and someone listened that makes this place even more like a labyrinth than it already was it's going to be like certain floors have passageways turn floors down you have to go up and down one of those [Music] i thought i heard buzzing at one of these rooms it's just more building everywhere you look now certain wings have new windows certain wings don't like this one it's interesting should we go across or head to a different part of the building go across and then we can go up her down i just want to avoid going back and forth on the stairs bathtub it's like one of the old ones with the legs oh yeah it says off-limits to crew i bet that's film crew demo crew probably felt true dude another nice staircase this building is full of them with the suicide cages too so there's like at least three stories below us one story above us wow let's stick to this floor for now cut back to another building over here yeah these are all empty offices so not that interesting this hallway is not quite as stunning as the central one but it's got a fork in it it does split off here let's go this way first okay yeah there's no efficient way to do this place really you're just gonna end up wandering around which is always fun yeah just being lost uh oh why drop ceiling maybe we shouldn't even bother with this one every room is drop ceiling i'm gonna take a look at the end of the store and see what there is i think it's just a big open area there's a hallway but it's nice and cool over here you're right it's like the ugliest drop ceiling too like look at by the windows how it goes up yeah it's pretty so bad it would have looked better just run exposed conduits along the ceiling can we see the original ceiling i mean yeah it's just white it's terrible you could see the original conduit on the ceiling up there where there would be the old light fixtures but it's bad holy [ __ ] did you see this door no i did not what the [ __ ] oh it's an elevator okay i guess that elevator was very much i was expecting like a timeout yeah but no they just used that elevator i guess this this like copper handle is like so imposing looking i wonder where they got this from it's came off something probably probably reused it look up there there's pink in the ornate up above the drop ceiling oh [ __ ] you see the hopefully there will be other wings like this that aren't modernized like the wood supports you see them they're all framed nicely these offices seem slightly modernized but still look cool if these even wear offices they could have been wards hmm these were probably just cubicles yeah i mean these are patients or they could have been it seems a little tight to have a bed in here i mean it was bad oh yeah you're right these could have been beds well i like the color it's a very calming color yeah which i guess is why they used it in an asylum do not enter police canine training inside so check it out all right well we know they're not here today at least not right now oh this is older oh yeah this is why out here oh look at that that ceiling oh this is that hallway the pink ward holy crap this is awesome so i don't think this is actually the one they used in glass it was close because i remember they liked the pink but they thought this one was to decayed so they painted another one pink but yeah this is the same thing that we were in with all the cubicles this is what it would have looked like before the drop ceiling and look they did the air duct chipotle style and it looks way better yeah i can't believe it just ruined this stuff when i modernize it it's really sad and then they're just trying to knock the whole thing down so that's even worse all the waters have this dark little room on the side probably just a closet and not anything dark like a solitary confinement room or something oh this bathroom is an older style also this is a lot of decay here this was um yes the storage room this ward has been a lot of different colors over the years but it's always been pastel it's been pretty much every pastel color there could possibly be blue green yellow and pink [Music] after the pink ward we kept running into locked doors every way we turned we decided to double back to the main lobby and go up to the next floor let's go up here real quick while we're here it's kind of tight up here i feel like these are most likely to have been nurses quarters actually because in a lot of other asylums they're on the very top sort of attic level okay this is a cool stairwell let's go down here are you kidding me this is the same one we were at before it's not the yellow one this is blue yeah clearly in the opposite direction did we yeah okay [ __ ] so annoying here we go backtracking again this is a cool looking hallway this is an awesome view out here in this little courtyard [Applause] [Applause] uh-huh and let me do it from this side it's your impossible these ugly ass lights the wood carvings in the ceiling are really nice it's a shame most of the windows are completely boarded over though the ones in the back are letting some light in this room has seen some modifications over the years and they're not good ones this is where we got to be careful of workers showing up so they walked right in this door just an hour or so ago here's that staircase oh wow we're kind of lucky they're not doing that much work in here today because they've definitely been doing stuff in here and it's a weekday this is so beautiful the detail on the railing is pretty nice jeez you know what this reminds me of what the pre-show for the haunted mansion in the stretching room and then yeah look up and there's a body hanging from the rafters up there these are checking windows this checking window looks really old or whatever kind of window it was globe lights [Music] so we got the yellow staircase and the blue staircase oh wow that's a big mural close the whole hallway it's not much civilization on this mural there's a thing here a little village in the distance this was the state hospital circa early 1900s just one little building is that the front building that's the big one yeah it does have the spire another drop ceiling board all the plaster is falling off carpet smells gross what there's tracks here for a hospital curtain they would have had patients here that's what i'm telling you all these are patient words it's pretty old-fashioned to have a big open hall yeah i mean originally i didn't even have these dividers i'm sure there was no privacy those are translucent panels so they would have had light come through there i bet more cubicles too bad there's not beds left let's check out the kitchen lots of brick that's cool oh there's two wings here wow this is the main kitchen but all the stoves were ripped out it's a pretty neat kitchen this is an echoey room really tall ceilings no equipment left but it still has a lot of character absolutely every surface is tiled for easy cleaning these fridges yeah these were the fridges [Applause] they look pretty old yeah they do i mean they only have mesh doors on them so they bring yeah look at the doors up top yeah they stopped using them yeah they probably had those doors up there on the bottom too it's pretty dark down there oh there's a lot of decay down here this is the carpenter shop mostly empty think it still moves maybe we are below grade now oh there's belt driven machines down here yeah this is awesome so where would it be driven from look at this yeah all the machines would be on the same engine the same motor it would come in through the window or i think right here there's only one machine left i guess yeah there would have been ones they probably replace them with more modern ones or just stopped using the machine shop look at this tunnels yep creepy looking ones too i don't know if this gets us into any actual buildings that way goes towards the power plant though it wouldn't be a classic asylum exploration without going through some steam tunnels there's power on yeah this is a different building this is probably the power plant i don't think anything else is down here here's the power plant oh this area looks a lot more untouched i don't think that many people have made it over here here's one of the newer boilers they put in looks like they just ripped out one of the older ones from here no generators though unfortunately it's purely a steam plant they're not bailey meters they're hagen and they're bristols there's where the coal would come in it would get dumped right there and then go into the boilers this would generate all the steam for the hospital in the winter most of these boilers would be busy generating the steam necessary to heat the entire hospital however the steam was also used in the kitchen laundry room and even the surgical ward for sterilizing tools [Applause] [Music] [Music] asylums are often portrayed as dark places with a history of inhumane treatment lobotomies overcrowding and abuse are usually the first things that come to mind within the walls of allentown however i wasn't once crossed by these thoughts from the palatial marble-clad foyer to the intricate stairwells from the grand auditorium to the hallways beaming with sunlight it's hard to feel weighed down by anything in this environment and perhaps that's exactly what the designers of these buildings intended beneath all the failures and missteps the opulent architecture of asylums almost feels like an act of compassion towards the patients who would be bound within their walls through it all this beautiful architecture has been a reminder perhaps bittersweet that somebody cared stepping inside allentown state hospital is an experience you get a feeling that can't be understood just from photos or history textbooks it's a real physical link to the past that allows us to get a glimpse at the mindsets of the people who constructed it over a hundred years ago today however the future of the building looks bleak despite protests from allentown residents petitions gathering thousands of signatures and widespread community support for repurposing the building the hospital has already entered the first stages of demolition pennsylvania taxpayers will be left with a 13 million demolition bill and an empty plot of land perfect for a new walmart or amazon warehouse this portion of today's video is sponsored by nordvpn nordvpn helps you protect your online activity from spying eyes and evades region restrictions with their thousands of encrypted servers in over 60 countries with a no data logging policy their easy to use application allows you to pick a country to connect from and once you're connected you're browsing the web as if you were there when we were traveling internationally we used nordvpn in order to connect to the web as if we were still in the united states regardless of which country we were 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Channel: The Proper People

Views: 586,357

Rating: 4.9565215 out of 5

Keywords: abandoned, urban, exploration, urbex, exploring, haunted, proper, people, theproperpeople, abandoned places, hospital, asylum, allentown state hospital, allentown, travel, documentary, history, architecture, cinematic, pennsylvania, america, demolition, mental hospital

Id: 8_1pkBEHNC4

Length: 37min 24sec (2244 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/drakesphere]

Great vid.