Forest Haven housed more than a thousand children. They were not permitted to own shoelaces.
Glass hissed. Our footsteps echoed, broken fragments of sound. Scraps of wood, door frames and chair legs, and dressers hiding in corners. Papers scattered across a concrete floor: diagrams and patient files and surveys and intake forms and children’s drawings.
KEEP MOVING BY MATTI BEN-LEV 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 111
Abandoned buildings to me are kind of like holding your breath.
“Here it is,” James said. We were alone but we still whispered.
Forest Haven, a village with no doors. Vines crackled under our shoes, nipping, coiling around our ankles. The woods seemed like they might envelop us if we stopped for too long. The moon was bright white, a spotlight.
The first brick building had a platform, like a loading bay. Graffiti was sprayed where doors and windows used to be: All Welcome Except Nazis.
Our flashlights clicked on, a steady beam. Our eyes, wide open, no peripheral vision; we could only see what was directly in front of us. Glass hissed. Our footsteps echoed, broken fragments of sound. Scraps of wood, door frames and chair legs, and dressers hiding in corners. Papers scattered across a concrete floor: diagrams and patient files and surveys and intake forms and children’s drawings.
A ceramic bowl collides with a pale, blue wall. An orange cylinder stands on a dark oak desk. Blue chunks of ceramic and plaster on the floor. There’s a hole in the wall. The cylinder is empty.
There’s a bowl of noise between your ears. You try to turn it off.
Forest Haven opened in 1925 serving mentally ill and handicapped children “unable to function in society”. A 250-acre campus and 22 buildings. The children were taught job skills in a communal farming environment. They milked cows and planted crops. Buildings were named after trees, Beech, Elm. There were basketball courts, athletic fields, green spaces, room to breathe. It housed more than a thousand children. They were not permitted to own shoelaces.