Friday, November 03, 2006
New Jersey Insane Asylum by Menlo Park Mall
I'm watching the Celebrity Paranormal Project on VH1. (I'm home because Borat was sold out and I have to work tomorrow...) This show takes celebrities and makes them walk around an old insane asylum. The fun of it is they all freak out.
Anyway, I grew up in New Jersey. In high school, we used to play manhunt (aka. hide and seek) in an abandoned Insane Asylum in Edison. We were real hard asses when it came to scary shit. There would be a group of us (usually 5-8 people), and probably 2 flashlights. Everyone would get separated (as it was a game), and you’d get lost, by yourself, in the dark, in the solitary confinement wing… only one way in and out, but with about 20 doorways leading into single rooms (or cells).
Side note: One of my friends fell down an elevated shaft here once. Only one floor and he was alright… needless to say, he didn’t have a flashlight.
Occasionally we saw some other people on the property (it was fenced in), but we never talked to anyone that wasn’t a part of our crew. We had a rumor that bums used to sleep there sometimes.
We used to smoke cigarettes and weed on the roof. Maybe have a few drinks and a few of my friends used to trip acid. To get to the roof, you had to climb a tree on the side of the building from a broken window on the top floor, and use both the building and tree to push your way up. This was our main meeting spot once at the asylum.
Anyway, after watching the show, I began reminiscing about these times and decided to do a search for the asylum (now torn down) on the net. I stumbled upon this LINK at Weird NJ.
Quote:
Well, Bob comes back in to lead us out, but tells us not to look up. The way it was laid out, was once we went outside, you could look up to your left and see the rest of the building which was a couple of stories high. Of course, the first thing we all do? Look up! On the roof was a group of people staring down at us.
Now Bob says they were wearing all black, I couldn’t tell since it was dark and all we could see was their outlines. Whatever they were wearing, we were defecating ourselves. Bob had told us stories of cults gathering there and stuff so our first inclination was: Satan-worshippers. One guy was smoking a cigarette and just staring at us. We started walking quickly, looking for the exit, but we were fenced in. While we’re walking and simultaneously praying and trying to get out, the group on the roof was slowly walking along with us. We counted about a half dozen or so of them and we were absolutely petrified as it was until we saw them stop and what looked to be the leader guy (cigarette man) talking to another guy. All of a sudden that guy turns and walks away from them. We immediately realized that the guy was probably coming downstairs to do something to us (which probably wouldn’t have been to say hello), so we ran like a bunch of scared little girls.
We ran around the side of the building and decide to forget about trying to go through an opening in the fence and just go OVER the fence.
We scampered up the fence, where Matt got his watch caught and ended up losing it, but we weren’t going to stop to look for it. We ran all the way to the car and didn’t stop for anything.
End Quote.
I nearly pissed myself laughing… I think they were only there about 10 minutes. I don't know if it was us on the roof at the time, but it very well could have been. Some stoned teenagers playing hide and seek made you run like a little girl.
Gotta love it :O)
Anyway, I grew up in New Jersey. In high school, we used to play manhunt (aka. hide and seek) in an abandoned Insane Asylum in Edison. We were real hard asses when it came to scary shit. There would be a group of us (usually 5-8 people), and probably 2 flashlights. Everyone would get separated (as it was a game), and you’d get lost, by yourself, in the dark, in the solitary confinement wing… only one way in and out, but with about 20 doorways leading into single rooms (or cells).
Side note: One of my friends fell down an elevated shaft here once. Only one floor and he was alright… needless to say, he didn’t have a flashlight.
Occasionally we saw some other people on the property (it was fenced in), but we never talked to anyone that wasn’t a part of our crew. We had a rumor that bums used to sleep there sometimes.
We used to smoke cigarettes and weed on the roof. Maybe have a few drinks and a few of my friends used to trip acid. To get to the roof, you had to climb a tree on the side of the building from a broken window on the top floor, and use both the building and tree to push your way up. This was our main meeting spot once at the asylum.
Anyway, after watching the show, I began reminiscing about these times and decided to do a search for the asylum (now torn down) on the net. I stumbled upon this LINK at Weird NJ.
Quote:
Well, Bob comes back in to lead us out, but tells us not to look up. The way it was laid out, was once we went outside, you could look up to your left and see the rest of the building which was a couple of stories high. Of course, the first thing we all do? Look up! On the roof was a group of people staring down at us.
Now Bob says they were wearing all black, I couldn’t tell since it was dark and all we could see was their outlines. Whatever they were wearing, we were defecating ourselves. Bob had told us stories of cults gathering there and stuff so our first inclination was: Satan-worshippers. One guy was smoking a cigarette and just staring at us. We started walking quickly, looking for the exit, but we were fenced in. While we’re walking and simultaneously praying and trying to get out, the group on the roof was slowly walking along with us. We counted about a half dozen or so of them and we were absolutely petrified as it was until we saw them stop and what looked to be the leader guy (cigarette man) talking to another guy. All of a sudden that guy turns and walks away from them. We immediately realized that the guy was probably coming downstairs to do something to us (which probably wouldn’t have been to say hello), so we ran like a bunch of scared little girls.
We ran around the side of the building and decide to forget about trying to go through an opening in the fence and just go OVER the fence.
We scampered up the fence, where Matt got his watch caught and ended up losing it, but we weren’t going to stop to look for it. We ran all the way to the car and didn’t stop for anything.
End Quote.
I nearly pissed myself laughing… I think they were only there about 10 minutes. I don't know if it was us on the roof at the time, but it very well could have been. Some stoned teenagers playing hide and seek made you run like a little girl.
Gotta love it :O)
