On January 31st, 2015, a massive fire ripped through a warehouse on the Brooklyn waterfront that contained troves of government records. Some of these were records from Building G – one of NYC’s most notorious psych ward. This highly suspicious fire involved an early morning FDNY response to a small fire, which rekindled and exploded into a full 7 alarm blaze after firefighters left.
Conspiracy theorist speculation on the cause for this fire focused on the properties real estate value, though the fact that this facility housed tens of thousands of potentially fraudulent HHC medical records is worth mentioning (“Daily News investigates faked records and fatal blunders at city-run hospitals” – July 28, 2009). While the majority of the records contained in this building were destroyed in the blaze, many flew out and littered the neighborhood afterwards.
The aforementioned warehouse likely contained records from Building G – one of NYC’s most infamous ‘nut houses’. Building G is where the Son of Sam was taken for evaluation after his arrest. Old Dirty Bastard mentions this fun palace in ‘Brooklyn Zoo’: “In the G-Building, taking all types of medicines“. The title Brooklyn Zoo was absconded by a psychology intern who penned a book about her residency here (This book has many negative reviews stemming from the authors ridiculous devotion to psychoanalysis. I’m more of a S->R kinda guy myself).
Building G is where career crooks like this guy called Wade would get himself sent whenever he got busted: “The food’s better than Rikers,” Wade claimed. “Plus dey give you groovy pills to get zonked on all winter and dey let you out with time soived when the boids start chirpin’ in da trees.”(“Days of infamy at the G Building” – Daily News. Feb. 10 2009)
Building G is also where Esmin Green died in the waiting room, complete with a video showing a security guard not even bothering to see if she was still breathing. “A medical chart says “Green was “sitting quietly in the waiting room” at 6:20 a.m.; the video clearly shows she was dead on the floor.” Her family was rewarded two million dollars (“Family of woman left to die on a Kings County psych ward floor settles with city for $2M” – Daily News. May 27, 2009). Remember those fake medical records that went up in smoke on the Greenpoint waterfront? How many potential lawsuits were in those files?
Building G was shut down soon after Esmin Green’s story came out. The building sat for years slowly decaying. As with just about every other abandoned hospital in NYC, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that we made our way into this place on more than one occasion. During December of 2014, demolition finally took place. Other than the horror stories and maybe some preserved artifacts, nothing is left of Building G today.
Updated & Republished 5/25/2020 with formatting edits.
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would love to check g25 havent been there since a kid
My great aunt died in there in 1922! She had either syphillis or gonorhea and lost her mind! She died at 28 years old! I was interested in the building and conditions back then!
I would Never Forget when I was a Patient there… they really didn’t bother too help or care for the people in there