A photo of the abandoned main building of Utica State Hospital hardly does it justice: its tall pillars and steep entrance stairs are incredibly imposing. I may have contributed to the ominous feeling of the site by my arrival at dusk on an overcast day in February of 2010 that coincided with some sort of migration period by a large grouping of crows that periodically launched into the air seemingly out of nowhere whenever I was least expecting it.
Patients were first accepted beginning in 1843 and the institution also served as the home of the American Journal of Insanity (now the American Journal of Psychiatry).
Photographs (I’m not affiliated with websites below, just a fan):
Shaun O’Boyle has several beautiful images of the abandoned interior of “Old Main” on his website.
Roger Luther also has a large collection of both interior and exterior photographs of the Utica buildings.
FieldNotes 