VA Hospital IV

The sad beeping of the dying smoke alarms was a not so subtle reminder that the building hadn’t been abandoned for long. Items – mostly technology – still sporting hang tags marked “excess” told us someone had been though the building making conscious decisions about what to do with its contents. Still, much remained. A good friend who volunteers with a medical project sending supplies to Haiti and Africa is always telling me about the donations they collect. They will take anything, down to a few unused gauze pads. In the VA Hospital major equipment – dental chairs with drill equipment and lights, X-ray machines, refrigerators, exercise and therapeutic equipment – all silently awaited the dumpster. It seemed fairly clear that everything the government wanted had been removed.

Although the place was locked up pretty tight on the ground floors to prevent human intruders, the upper floors let in birds and I’m betting other animals will soon be wandering the corridors. Once windows are broken, the elements begin to have their way with everything in sight. Paint peels, bird guano collects, things start to break down. No matter how tightly a building is locked up, explorers will find a way to get in. We did. And not everyone is as gentle as we are. Kids are much more aggressive in their entry-seeking and disturb much more once they are inside. We saw evidence of their exploits throughout the building: a few toner cartridges emptied across a room leaving a thin film of jet black powder, smashed windows, piles of medical equipment in a broken jumble on the floor.

On the upper floors all window air conditioner guts had been removed leaving only the hulking shells of the old enormous AC units hanging outside the windows. Birds enjoyed easy access through these comfortable shelters. We saw more than a few dead birds who’d obviously not been able to find egress as easily.

Although the place had clearly been gone through, still much remained. Much waste, much that my friend would have happily put in a shipping container bound for a nation much poorer than we and in desperate need of anything salvageable. Furniture, a lot of it, could have been donated somewhere. Yes, it’s that unbearably ugly institutional furniture, but that very construction makes it almost indestructible. It should find a home. Instead, it seems bound for the dump. Recycling our waste takes commitment and energy and apparently these are still lacking. Instead, entropic creep takes over what we leave behind.