About

Who Are You?

My name is Sarah and I’m an artist from Philadelphia who writes stories, takes pictures, and creates videos of defunct institutions; abandoned hospitals, mills, power plants, and factories.

What is This?

Photadyta is a stipulative word that explains the relation of the Explorer to the building; opening a door to new insight and interpretation. In Latin, an adytum is a sacred and restricted area within the cella of a temple. This word translates to ‘inaccessible’. With that in mind, photography and adytum come together to create a word of unique expression: “inaccessible photography” or “photography of the inaccessible” of which is sacred.

…Why?

This website exists to share the history of the locations in which the photographs were taken and to flaunt the derelict beauty of the desolate wards, morgues and operating rooms of shuttered state hospitals or the work rooms, engine rooms, and locker rooms of long-forgotten factories.

Nature always takes back, in the sense that everything built up will eventually fall down. Buildings are similar to people, because they both have a story to tell and this website helps to tell that story.

Where Are These Places?

Most of the locations are referred to by their pseudonym to protect the welfare of the site because they are historical institutions that played an important role in the history of our culture.

If anything is of important interest to you, feel free to email me.

What is Urban Exploration?

“How beautiful look earth and heaven again, as we emerge from the gloom! It might not be unprofitable, now and then, to send us mortals, the dissatisfied ones at least, and that’s a large proportion, into some tunnel of several days’ journey. We’d perhaps grumble less, afterward, at God’s handiwork,” -Walt Whitman describing the Atlantic Avenue tunnel.

In the early twentieth century, the social scientists, otherwise known as anthropologists, searched for a new understanding of ethnicity, poverty and self-image. During this time, the urban Anthropologists formed a community to investigate and collaborate information taken from the dwellers in the rookeries, which is a slum area frequented by criminals, prostitutes, paupers and lunatics. These Social Reformers explored and mapped out the diseased spaces, which threatened the health of the social community. The fever dens, nurseries of felons and the colonies of paupers included confined spaces, hidden recesses, narrow turnings, dark alleys and shadowy corners, which were plagued with disease. The slums were viewed as a cancer eating away at the established social structure and the urban explorers were social reformers who searched for an antidote.

William Booth, George Sims and Henry Mayhew were three early urban explorers proficient in journalism and were prolific in writing about their urban adventures. Mayhew referred to himself as an urban investigator-as-explorer who wrote reports for the Morning Chronicle. Mayhew was a traveler in the undiscovered country of the poor. When man had nothing new to discover, he turned inward and rediscovered his territory, creating concepts to lower the poverty level, while taking notes on modern human behavior and social interaction. The explorer strolled the city in order to experience and understand the new urban era. He was a detached observer combining sociological, anthropological, literary and historical notions of the relationship between the individual and the greater populace of the city.

The anonymity of the explorer was merely a ruse; a play of masks without which the explorer could not transform into the beautiful raw stuff he witnessed. The explorer puts on whichever mask will gain him access to otherwise secret and mysterious places. For him, everything is vacant and if certain places seem closed, it is only because in his eyes they are not worth visiting. The language of urban exploration carefully played down the special nature of the explorer and emphasized the explorer’s willingness to delve below the surface in order to brave the risks of fever and other injuries to his health.

Tell Me a Story!

It’s a hot, humid night and you’re walking toward an overgrown trail off a busy road in the outskirts of Philadelphia. The path below has been worn thin from feet that frequent it. Crisp air pushes through the dark, cool woods wrapping itself around your face as honey suckle and wild grass is scented. You walk steadfast into the darkness as the sound of traffic behind you softens and is replaced with the sound of crickets chirping. The anxiety of entering far enough into the darkness to not be seen by the unwanted is flashing in your mind. As you enter the trail, you wonder if you’ll pass others walking in the opposite direction and if so, what they saw in the direction you are now going.

Your eyes begin to adjust – you notice the faint twinkle of the stars in the sky through the light pollution of the city. You look down to observe your footing while stepping over rocks embedded in the dirt and dips in the ground from where large ones have previously been removed. You look up and notice a break in the horizon as the tall grass ends at what appears to be a clearing, which catches the moonlight differently than the field you’re walking through. A dark, shadowy outline of a silhouette building hovers above you with a nearly full moon hanging in the sky. The building seems to grow in size as you cautiously step toward it. This is the moment when your instinct gives you the option to turn around. The stale scent of fire, spray paint, asbestos, medical waste, mold and library books infiltrate the scent of summer grass and honey suckle, twirling and mixing midair while creating it’s own unique scent. The terrain below your feet becomes rough, mixed with pebbles as you kick up the loose, dry dirt.

You cross over the old, paved road that has faded and plants have crept through the cracks and snack wrappers rock back and forth on the pavement in the breeze. Pushing through brush you step toward the dark, inviting doorway not far ahead while avoiding bugs, cobwebs, metal grating, glass and sharp objects strewn about. The brisk scent of stale fire blows out of the doorway into your face while pushing back your hair and drying your eyes. The wind beats past your ears creating static as you push through the open doorway into the building. The wind stops blowing. All is still and all is silent. Drip, drip, drip, the water pings onto aluminum scrap from a leaky pipe in the ceiling. You come to a standstill in the hallway while observing and adjusting to your new surroundings.

Carefully and quietly you dig through your bag for your flashlight. Click, you turn it on. Freshly disturbed particles of dust, ash and asbestos twirl around in the beam of light as you wave it around the hall and into nearby rooms as it reflects off broken windows and glass. You take a few steps forward and adjust the beam to the end of the hall. You squint your eyes and wonder where it leads. You ask yourself, are there any tunnels, are there any people in here, are there any animals, how many rooms, how many floors, is there a basement, what was this building used for, how many people lived and worked in it, died in it, celebrated birthdays in it, slept in it, ate in it, you blindly walk straight down the hall waiting to come to an end, or a turn, or a drop.

“What did you say they used to call this place again?” you ask. “Byberry”, your friend replies.

Hey, Didn’t I See You Somewhere?

Media Coverage and Television Appearance:

Newspaper Article: the Philadelphia Inquirer. Farrell, Joelle. Published: Sunday, 03/01/09. Exploring Abandoned Industrial Hulks (digital reproduction).

Television Series: Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel. Air Date: Friday, 11/06/09. Pennhurst State (check your local listings for air-times).