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I’m sick today. Sore throat, achy muscles, the works. You’ll never guess why, so I’ll just tell you: probably because I spent an unhealthy chunk of Valentine’s Day location scouting (for an upcoming film shoot) at a creepy, mold-infested, long-abandoned hospital in East Los Angeles.
Built in 1938 as a hospital for railroad employees (and reportedly occupied by Howard Hughes on occasion), nobody’s been admitted to Linda Vista Hospital since it closed in 1990. Besides the odd ghost sighting (speciously reported here) the place has been haunted mainly by film crews: they shot parts of Outbreak, End of Days, Boogeyman 2 and the pilot for E.R. there. As a result, I’m sure a lot of the creepier stuff we found was concocted by production designers with dark senses of humor over the years, but knowing that didn’t diminish the flesh-crawly feeling my small crew and I got from being there, totally alone. (There wasn’t even anyone there to show us around — “it’s unlocked, just go right in,” the caretaker told us over the phone.)
I guess I could’ve gotten sick some other way, but this place was just so drippingly disgusting — it just seems right that I should’ve picked up some horror-movie infection while there. I started taking pictures for reference, but soon realized that after years of being the haunted hospital location of choice, the now ironically-named Linda Vista wasn’t much good for shooting non-haunted stuff anymore. (Which, in retrospect, is fine — doing a 20-hour night shoot in this place would be pretty low on my list of Fun Things to Do.)
Outside …
The drapes were a nice touch, I thought.
Anyone missing a door?
The autopsy table.
Unsubtle, but to the point:
Unless this was the psych ward, I imagine this is the work of a very disturbed art director.
Free gurney! It’s blocking the entrance to the morgue, which I didn’t quite have the courage to explore.
I think this used to be an operating room.
No, there’s nothing creepy about this bed.
A lot of the hallways were wet.
Why does this remind me of a scene from The Shining? 
All the comforts of home …
What happened to the third bed?
If you enjoyed this post, check this one out, about an abandoned suburb in Florida — also creepy, but in a very different way.
At first glance, the place looks pretty well kept up for being abandoned (exterior). In Pittsburgh, we have (had, curses walmart!) Dixmont Mental Hospital. Google for info, but basically, it was a totally self contained community/mental health facility. And it was SUPER creepy.
As is the place above after seeing the interior pics…
posted by Sarah on 2-15-2008 at 8:14 am
“A lot of the hallways were wet.”
Uh…wet with *what* I wonder. Yikes.
posted by AMR on 2-15-2008 at 8:15 am
the room with all the graffiti terrifies me. I have had several friends with very scary stalkers and I have always imagined their houses to look somewhat like that on the inside, except with my friends’ names written on the walls…
posted by Sarakenobi on 2-15-2008 at 8:23 am
They just finished tearing down the last of Byberry Hospital in northeast Philly. Right after they closed the buildings for good a local(a now defunct Eagle 106) radio station used some of the buildings as a haunted house. That is until they realized asbestos was not so awesome for the lungs. It was SUPER creeptacular, though. Very much an obsession of my in my late teens (angst ridden teenager obsessing over abandoned mental hospital? How bizarre!)
The company my boyfriend worked for before grad school was contracted to run soil samples on the property. The day before he went one of the head guys for another company went into one of the building and when he was ascending a set of stairs they collapsed underneath him. He fell several floors and dies at the scene. Very sad.
posted by Jessica on 2-15-2008 at 8:30 am
When I lived in L.A., my friend and I thought it would be fun to go ghost-hunting at Linda Vista. The front door was not open for us so we climbed in a first floor window and tip-toed around the first floor. I agree, it was truly creepy. But what was strange is how safe I felt whenever we were in the front lobby where that front desk was. Like there was a lingering feeling of welcome still hanging around in that lobby. But as soon as we walked away, that feeling disappeared. Then, I don’t know if homeless people were living there or if it was a ghost, but we started hearing metal rattling around on a floor above us and went tearing out of there scared out of our minds! Good times, good times.
posted by Nicole on 2-15-2008 at 8:39 am
I understand that ‘Scrubs’ is filmed at a closed, abandoned hospital (although not this one).
posted by Greg Steinmayer on 2-15-2008 at 9:17 am
I lived in L.A. all my life and never knew about this. I’ll have to go exploring with a few daring friends
posted by Downchez on 2-15-2008 at 9:34 am
Reminds me of a less scary version of the abandoned Hilltop Hospital in Rye Brook, NY. It was still standing and in disturbing disrepair while I was a college student. We could walk to it from campus. I can’t say for certain that it was haunted, but by God it gave everyone the creeps. There were several different buildings in the area. The main building had a huge picture window that had collapsed onto the foyer stairwell, so to get upstairs you had to tiptoe through the window frame amidst all the broken glass. Another building had a roomful of crutches… they were literally piled to the ceiling. More exploration showed old ponds and gazebos, and an administrative building with paperwork and old patient’s records.
It was torn down in the late 90’s, and now a housing complex exists on the site. I feel fortunate to have explored this place, not only for the lifetime of spooky memories that it’s given me, but I got some great pictures out of it, too. If anyone went to SUNY Purchase before 1998 and remembers the old insane asylum… please contact me! I’d love to swap stories.
posted by Jill on 2-15-2008 at 9:40 am
Ransom,
Are you sure Outbreak wasn’t a documentary? :-)
posted by Cincy Scott on 2-15-2008 at 10:04 am
I once visited a friend’s at college somewhere on Long Island. Her dorm used to be a mental hospital and though it was clean and not in disrepair, it was really creepy. I can’t imagine having to live there.
posted by Jay on 2-15-2008 at 10:43 am
In Tuscaloosa, AL there is Old Bryce which is an abandoned mental institution. I went to the University of Alabama and if you didn’t try to sneak in while you were a student there, you knew someone that did.
posted by Holly on 2-15-2008 at 10:57 am
A clown’s face is in the clouds.
Nothing is scarier than a clown.
posted by Stuffanie on 2-15-2008 at 10:59 am
Awesome post! There’s an abandoned hospital in Georgetown, KY (near Lexington) that has some similar scenery…
www.abandonedonline.net/index.php?catid=16&photos=1
posted by Roger on 2-15-2008 at 10:59 am
I worked as a consultant at Good Samaritan Hospital near downtown Los Angeles. The hospital is a collection of buildings more or less connected together. The oldest section was found to have asbestos and abandoned for patient care. Some areas were cleaned and used for staff (gee, thx). Other areas remain as they were when that part of the building was closed down. It’s just like the interior of Linda Vista but without the vandalism and water damage. It’s creepy to see ancient empty offices, patient rooms, and operating rooms. I swear it looks like a horror movie set, complete with dust and flickering light fixtures.
The staff I worked with warned me about unusual happenings in that area. Sounds and door knobs turning on empty rooms. This abandoned area is an upper floor and is actually between two functioning areas of the hospital. One day rather than negotiate their ancient and slow elevators or go down stairs only to climb back up on the other side, I decided to take the direct route and walk through this section (carefully closed of by new walls and double doors). While I could see the lights of where I wanted to go down the hall, I felt I was being watched from the dark empty rooms to either side. While no door knobs turned, my run through went undisturbed. I’ve never been so creeped out in my life.
posted by JodoKast on 2-15-2008 at 12:50 pm
That is the scariest clown cloud I have ever seen.
posted by Kelley M on 2-15-2008 at 1:22 pm
There’s a whole website of creepy abandoned hospitals and whatnot:
www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com
posted by Scooter on 2-15-2008 at 1:44 pm
Even populated hospitals are creepy. I used to work at St. Francis in Peoria, which has been built and rebuilt and expanded so many times that it’s an absolute maze. I used to have to work, by myself, in a file room that was rather secluded and the routes I would have to walk had several passages that were poorly lit and just down right spooky. These were also usually used by the janitorial staff, several of whom were scary.
You’re braver than I am, Ransom!
posted by kitsana_d on 2-15-2008 at 2:18 pm
Who can I contact to scout this location? I’d love to film here, as one of my earlier movies was shot in an abandoned hospital in Portland, Oregon. Feel free to email me if you don’t want to give out the number:
flossATsomecompanyfilmsDOTCOM
Thanks!
posted by Aaron on 2-15-2008 at 2:18 pm
great posting: thanks for sharing that
posted by gaston monescu on 2-15-2008 at 2:24 pm
I did a year of volunteer work in St. Louis and became friends with the Vincentian Volunteer Corps people, who lived in this HUGE house (we’re talking like 30 bedrooms). It used to be a home for disabled children, including a few mentally disturbed ones.
Down in their rather creepy basement was a closet underneath the stairs. Although the walls had been repainted, you could still see what lay underneath–words written in a thick marker. I forget what all was written there, but I know a few of them had to do with death.
All I have to say is that their house made for an awesome haunted house at halloween–which we took full advantage of!
posted by nutmeag on 2-15-2008 at 3:10 pm
You should convert these pics to B + W. I think they would look WAY creepier!
posted by Glenn on 2-15-2008 at 5:48 pm
Hilltop Hospital in Rye Brook, NY. It was still standing and in disturbing disrepair while I was a college student. We could walk to it from campus. I can’t say for certain that it was haunted, but by God it gave everyone the creeps. There were several different buildings in the area. The main building had a huge picture window that had collapsed onto the foyer stairwell, so to get upstairs you had to tiptoe through the window frame amidst all the broken glass. Another building had a roomful of crutches… they were literally piled to the ceiling. More exploration showed old ponds and gazebos, and an administrative building with paperwork and old patient’s records.
posted by anon on 2-15-2008 at 5:49 pm
There is a small arts/religious community about an hour and a half south from Buffalo, NY that has a summer “season.” Every year they invite art students, dancers, actors and musicians to study and perform, take classes, etc.
They also hire theater technicians to work on the shows they put up. Most of these techies stay in a house on the grounds that used to be the morgue or funeral home for the community. The table where they wash the bodies is still in the basement–it can be view from the top of the stairs.
Also, one of the rooms (there are about 15 or so) in this same house has a slanted ceiling with writing on it from someone who was mentally troubled. I don’t remember exactly what it said, but I didn’t like going into that room. I have no idea how anyone stayed there, but I think a few people had a morbid fascination with it.
posted by LJ on 2-15-2008 at 5:53 pm
Scrubs is filmed in Sherman Oaks at an old Hospital that is kept up in decent condition. It’s used for a lot of Medical Dramas/commercials. Only during the strike did I see it empty in any way, otherwise it seems to be running all the time.
posted by Mark on 2-15-2008 at 5:54 pm
In Victoria (BC), The Vancouver Island Technology Park (VITP) was build on what used to be an old mental hospital. The place has changed a lot, but walking the halls and taking the stairs clearly shows the kind of place it used to be.
www.vitp.ca
posted by Danny on 2-15-2008 at 6:06 pm
Why is the power still on after nearly 20 years?
posted by Mo on 2-15-2008 at 6:17 pm
hey ransom, did you get hassled here? were there people around. i would LOVE to do a photo shoot here. let me know. thanks!!!
posted by tim on 2-15-2008 at 6:17 pm
Awesome post! I love stuff like this
posted by Melodye on 2-15-2008 at 6:23 pm
I hope you didn’t get that mysterious MRSA skin fungus disease. After all, hospitals are the hotbed (LOL) of diseases. People get taken in with diseases that hopefully the patient gets over but only to have it stay all over the hospital walls and everything. Frankly, hospitals aren’t all clean or sterile as one would think, not even the ICU units.
posted by Joey Y on 2-15-2008 at 6:43 pm
why is the electricity in there still on if it’s abandoned? kind of a waste of money..
posted by blah on 2-15-2008 at 7:36 pm
MRSA is not a skin fungus. It is an antibiotic resistant bacteria that can infect any part of your body. Most common is skin, but can go into lungs and digestive tract.
I’ve worked in health care for 7 years, and nearly half the patients in hospitals have MRSA or VRE (another superbug). I am probably completely immune to it, since I’ve never got it and have been exposed many times.
Also, most hospitals have a procedure about how to sterilize the rooms after they have been used by an infected patient. The process takes about 2 hours. The reason hospitals aren’t “very clean” is that most visitors and patients don’t know enough to wash their hands after touching things. I never could understand why people think that hospitals are so clean when that is where all the sick people go. It’s impossible to think that every single germ can be contained.
Hospital basements are creepy! Especially by the morgue. I’ve had to go there on a number of occasions, and I have decided that you must be a little crazy to want to work down there all the time.
posted by Heather A on 2-15-2008 at 7:43 pm
You should see the creepy abandoned hospital in St John, New Brunswick. It has been taken over by transients- quite a sight! Those hospital gurneys make great go-carts.
posted by John Kass on 2-15-2008 at 9:08 pm
You know, the place can do with a proper conversion and it can be much better. As shelters for homeless for instance.
posted by Jack on 2-15-2008 at 10:19 pm
I know this hospital, and completely agree that, staged or not, there is some really, really creepy stuff going on there. The weirdest thing about it for me is the mute caretaker who has an apartment on the premises. He only seems to understand spanish, and eventually I was able to get him to give me a tour of some of the darker, less accessible reaches of the hospital. He’s a really nice guy, but don’t tell me there’s nothing weird about being alone in a dark, damp hospital basement with a mute who has the only flashlight.
posted by Vic on 2-16-2008 at 2:31 am
Seen Session 9, anybody? It’s a bit underfunded and poorly acted, and maybe builds too slow, but it’s one of the creepiest “let’s explore this weird abandoned psych ward” movies I’ve ever seen. The sets definitely remind me of these photos, and I have no idea where it’s shot.
posted by drucifer on 2-16-2008 at 3:02 am
Wow, I’d love to shoot that at night. Make sure you check out my website.
I thought all the abandoned hospitals were on the east coast . . .
posted by Troy on 2-16-2008 at 12:12 pm
I recognize the “yellow_room” image (third from the bottom) from the “ER” pilot.
posted by Matt on 2-16-2008 at 2:51 pm
I’ve seen session 9, and that’s exactly what I thought. That was a creepy movie for sure.
posted by Heather A on 2-16-2008 at 4:31 pm
Looks like the setting for a Half Life 2 level.
posted by duck on 2-16-2008 at 4:38 pm
“I think this used to be an operating room.”
posted by p858snake on 2-18-2008 at 2:54 am
BOO!
posted by Tdave on 2-18-2008 at 3:06 am
p.s. I meant scary ghostly “BOO!”
posted by Tdave on 2-18-2008 at 3:15 am
Jill,
I went to Manhattanville College in the 90’s and remember Hilltop Hospital! I’d love to exchange some stories. I remember the room in the basement full of old patient records and the bloody bird in the kitchen with the syringe in it’s eye…i took home some envelopes with the ‘Hilltop Hospital’ return address printed on it and used those to pay my bills, lol.
posted by Christine on 2-18-2008 at 11:10 am
Dear all
we are a small community in Bangladesh a country in South asia.
Is there any one who will let me know whether the equipments of the hospital are usuable and if yes whethere we can get it for the people who are darth of medical services ?
posted by arefin on 2-19-2008 at 6:56 am
This is the hospital used in episode 5 of the television show Dexter!
posted by Kirren on 2-20-2008 at 8:40 pm
I don’t quite understand why the hospital is still standing..? Or why the city (or whoever owns it) would keep paying taxes on it, or paying hydro bills. Is the place for sale? Or do they actually make money using the place for movie sets, photo sets, etc?
What makes the place really creepy for me is the stuff left behind, guernys, beds, blinds, OR equipment, and especially medical files. Why leave all this stuff?
posted by M.A. McClavey on 2-21-2008 at 10:33 am
Yeah, the creepy thing is all the abandoned stuff everywhere…although as to the why, if they just shut it down (didn’t move) then I could understand it being stuff they couldn’t get rid of.
What would really freak me out is that yellow room. It looks in such good shape…and everything else is so awful. It’s just wrong, you know?
posted by Kate on 2-21-2008 at 12:56 pm
Take a tour in Europe to see really scary abandoned places ;)
posted by anony on 2-22-2008 at 5:43 am
Here in Connecticut we have three hospitals for the mentally ill which were closed in the last decade. They are still up, no one has torn them down. When I pass them, I see the decaying buildings and wonder what happened to all the lives for whom the hospital was the only home they ever had. I truly feel that their spirits still inhabit them even though the hallways are empty.
I read an article several years ago about the attics of former hospitals for the mentally ill. It talked of all the suitcases that were found up in the attics. They contained all the hopeful things that the inmates arrived with — wedding gowns, shoes, stuffed animals, all the things that would have meaning for a person arriving for what they thought was a short stay. All the suitcases were just left in the attic — even though the hospital was emptied of patients. It is a sad situation that these people were not really treated as people at all.
posted by Becca on 2-22-2008 at 12:19 pm
Hello. I actually went to this hospital last night my sis and friends wanted to go to a hanuted place. so we went here there was many creepy stuff we didnt go in because just by the actions that would happen outside was enough. but i would like to go inside but in the day time lol
posted by Janice on 3-1-2008 at 7:09 pm
Awesome! Thanks for the info. I’m going out there this weekend to take band photos.
One quick question, how do I get a hold of the caretaker?
posted by Elizabeth on 5-27-2008 at 1:43 pm
I think this hospital has abandoned, its very sad news for all. It has gave life to so many people who came to its rescue and the doctors are well treated. The government should not ban the hospitals, since lot of costly equipment will remain unused tends to waste of money. It should develop more and provide facilities. I think the government should think again before going to ban this hospital.
========================================
steve
posted by steve on 8-22-2008 at 3:09 am
In one of the episode commentaries for SIX FEET UNDER, they claimed they shot an episode here as well (said it was the same hospital ER had shot their pilot in) but I can’t remember which episode of SFU it was. It may have been Nate’s death which would have been shot in 2004 or 2005.
posted by Shell on 9-14-2008 at 9:30 pm
wow i actually never thought someone would take interest in that hospital..
i mean i’ve been there
n it is pretty creapy i
literally ran out but
like in any movie i fell
n got left behind by my’
friends….lol…
i froze but one of em
came back 4 me….
i never had d gutts t do it again…
nice pics though…
u should’ve gone t the basement it was
scaaaaryyyy!
posted by johana on 11-6-2008 at 5:16 pm
Linda Vista was also useds in an episode of DEXTER Season 1 (2005)on Showtime. When Dex’s “dad” Harry takes a teenage Dexter to Angel of Mercy or something Mercy Hospital. They shot the exterior shot at Linda Vista, I recongnized it right away. Awesome place.
posted by Janice on 11-9-2008 at 12:02 am
Is it true that you have to pay now to take photos in the hospital?
posted by zoe on 11-11-2008 at 7:18 pm