Sublunar Photography

Depaul Hospital was constructed in 1928 and opened in 1930. It was run by the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent DePaul until 1977 at which point it became North St. Louis General Hospital. The new hospital only operated out of the first and second floor and only until 1978 when it closed down. It remained vacant until 1984 when Tower Village, Inc. began running a nursing home here. Eventually, Tower Village became Northview Village and it had been a nursing home for the past several decades until it was abruptly shut down permanently on December 15, 2023.

This (re)visit was a long time coming. I first learned of this site back in the early days. In fact, my profile photo was a candid photo my comrade had taken of me at the entrance to the basement of this facility back in 2008. I was lurking at the doorway carefully listening to the sounds of the basement as we searched for any remnants of a morgue beneath this former hospital/active nursing home. In the last photos in the above linked blog post, there's a door covered in spiderwebs and dust in what is an obviously abandoned room. The next photo is a view through the window of a clean hallway inside an active medical facility. It would seem perfectly normal if we weren't observing it through the decades of dust and spiderwebs which had accumulated inside of a long abandoned wing of the same facility. I imagine anyone on the active side of this door would have felt rather uneasy about the view this window offered them since for them it was a haunting portal of darkness and decay staring back at them from the end of a long and lonely hallway and who knows what weirdos might be lurking on the other side of it at any given time..

Having been aware of this hospital's status as a nursing home for the past couple decades, I assumed that if I ever did get to explore it, it was going to be fairly boring inside because there would likely be no operating rooms or morgue, etc. But even back in 2008 you could tell the upper floors were obviously disused and I always wanted to see what was up there. So the time finally came and after 17 years, we returned to the site and made it happen.

For the most part it was exactly what I expected it to be. The chapel, however, is incredible and features ornate tile and stained glass among other details which I wasn't expecting. But the entire rest of the place is, well, a bombed out shithole/death trap (hence why I'm not concealing the site's real name). Each floor is the same repetitive series of hallways and filthy bedrooms most of which have been gutted and trashed.

Multiple fires have been started directly on the floor throughout the building. I'm not sure if they were put out intentionally or if they simply burned out harmlessly but either way this place is quite fucked and I doubt it's going to get any better under the current circumstances. Not only is the structure itself a truly unfortunate waste of good architecture and medical infrastructure, but there seems to have been a lot of equipment (hospital beds, mostly) which could have been donated to other similar institutions which are instead just being destroyed. Among the waste, we found a room nearly full of boxes of sealed N95 masks.

I've been exploring abandoned locations for a long time now and it still amazes me how selfish, careless and wasteful the 'ruling class' are. This is a massive structure which had previously won awards and various acclaim for its incredible architecture and modern/efficient design, yet the persons who were last responsible for it appear to have simply discarded it, walked away and let it become the city's problem. On top of that, these assholes (allegedly) shut the place down suddenly without warning, didn't pay out wages and caused their sick/elderly residents to be immediately re-housed elsewhere without prior notice and without proper medical records. The former residents and employees as well as the historic DePaul Hospital, not to mention the community and the city itself deserved a better outcome than this.

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Castillo de San Marcos is a Spanish military fortification which was constructed in Saint Augustine, Florida, in 1672 and is now considered the oldest masonry structure in the United States. Designed by Ignacio Daza, construction began on October 2, 1672 and was commenced by Governor Don Manuel Cendoya in the Spanish colony of San Agustin.

In 1668, San Agustin was sacked by pirates who, under the command of Robert Searle, were able to easily penetrate the town's weak defenses and raid it virtually uncontested. In response, Spanish Queen Regent Mariana quickly allocated the necessary funds and ordered a 300-man garrison to be constructed. Cendoya arrived from Spain in July of 1671 and his engineer Daza arrived the following year. Construction began in earnest in 1672, particularly after news reached of the 1670 English settlement of Charles Towne which was only a 2-days' voyage north.

After nearly 6 months of construction the bastions had been built to a height of 11 feet, but by this time both Cendoya and Daza had died of unknown illnesses. Their deaths were but a portent for what was to be a difficult 23 year construction project. Most of the physical hardship fell on the nearby Native inhabitants of Florida who were paid very little for what was very hard work. The labor force also consisted of both free and enslaved Africans. The Spanish government allowed people of all ethnicities to purchase (or serve) their way into freedom in society. African slaves who had escaped from ther English captors in Carolina were able to gain their freedom in Spanish San Agustin thanks to King Charles II whose 1693 edict declared "liberty to all...the men as well as the women...so that by their example and by my liberality others will do the same." This led to the founding of the first legally sanctioned free Black settlement in the United States (in 1738), just north of Saint Augustine, in what was to be called Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, also known as Fort Mose. The military leader of Fort Mose was an escaped slave from Carolina who was born in the Gambia region of Africa and baptised as "Francisco Menendez" after he sought, and found, refuge in San Agustin.

Castillo de San Marcos was "officially" completed in 1695. Shortly thereafter, in 1702, British General James Moore led his forces in an expedition to capture Saint Augustine. Although the English were unable to penetrate the fort, the town was destroyed in the process. Most of the town's residents along with the soldiers (about 1500 persons in total) crammed inside the fort to take refuge. The siege was finally ended when the Spanish fleet arrived from Havana and destroyed what remained of the English army at the cost of destroying the town itself. In 1728 another failed attack was waged against the Castillo by the British Colonel John Palmer with a force of 300 English and 100 Native Americans. Among those who defended the Castillo against the 1728 invasion was Francisco Menendez, the captain of the free black militia in Saint Augustine. The construction of Fort Mose, which Menedez would later lead, was begun in 1738. Renovations to the Castillo also began in 1738 but were dragged on for nearly two decades due, in part, to the British siege of 1740 which was led by colonial Governor James Oglethorpe. During this siege, the fort was bombarded relentlessly by canons for 27 days to no effect. The siege of 1740, like the rest, ended in failure. The renovations to the fort were finally completed in 1756 and in response to Oglethorpe's strategic use of the river in the 1740 siege, the Spanish constructed nearby Fort Matanzas to prevent any further use by an enemy as a rear entrance to the city.

In 1763, the Treaty of Paris turned Florida into a British colony and thus the Castillo changed its flags for the first time in its already long and distinguished history. The Castillo was now called "Fort St. Mark". British rule lasted only 20 years, however, during which time the United States embarked upon the Revolutionary War throughout which the fort served as a British military prison. During this time, three signers of the Declaration of Independence were held here (Thomas Heyward, Jr., Arthur Middleton, and Edward Rutledge) as was Christopher Gadsden, the Lieutenant governor of South Carolina.

The Peace of Paris treaty in 1784 brought control as well as the the Spanish flag back to Castillo De San Marcos. Later, in 1821, Florida became a United States Territory and under U.S control, the fort was renamed Marion in honor of of Carolina's Revolutionary War hero General Francis "The Swamp Fox" Marion. On January 10, 1861, Florida seceded from the Union and Fort Marion subsequently hoisted the flag of the Confederacy during the US Civil War, during which the fort saw no battle. In 1862, the United States Navy arrived and the fort was surrendered. It was subsequently used as a military prison primarily for Native Americans. Famous war chief Osceola and members of Geronimo's band of Apache, including his wife, were imprisoned within Fort Marion. Other notable prisoners include Kiowa Chief White Horse and Cheyenne Chief Grey Beard. Later, deserters from the Spanish-American War were also imprisoned here.

In 1900, Fort Marion was removed from the active list. It was preserved and recognized as a national monument in 1924. Fort Marion was officially deactivated in 1933, thus ending its 261 years of continuous military use. The fort was renamed by an act of Congress in 1942 back to its original name. In 1964, the fort's lawn became a gathering place in the civil rights movement when demonstrators including Martin Luther King, Jr had been barred entry across the street as a result of segregation.

Castillo de San Marcos has never been taken by force despite having been beseieged twice and attacked several times throughout its long 350 year history. The Castillo has, however, served the interests of 4 different countries consisting of Spain, Great Britain, the Confederate States and the United States. In each occurrence, control of the fort was handed over peacefully.

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