There’s something about abandoned places that sparks the imagination and strikes fear in some people’s hearts. The older the creepier.
Try this one on for size. Imagine doing some urban exploring through the paint-peeling halls and echoey, crumbling staircases of a hospital built in 1869. It has sat empty for decades.
Now imagine living in it. People will!
St. Michael’s Hospital in Newark came about at a time after the Civil War when the city desperately needed medical facilities. The Franciscan order that commissioned the place truly believed Newark would help fund and sustain the hospital. They didn’t.
But local Catholics helped keep it going by donating, and it expanded and thrived for many years. According to a New Jersey blog, St. Michael’s claimed to be home to the state’s first open heart surgery and for also instituting the first cardiac catheter program…