{"id":2341,"date":"2011-07-05T21:12:59","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T03:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asylumeclectica.com\/grim\/?p=2341"},"modified":"2011-07-05T21:12:59","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T03:12:59","slug":"morbid-fact-du-jour-for-july-5-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=2341","title":{"rendered":"Morbid Fact Du Jour For July 5, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s Dreaded Yet Truly Morbid Fact!<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the early 20th century, some swore, peering through the black railings to the stone buildings with their arched windows and Corinthian columns, that the entire Bellevue Hospital complex in New York City was haunted. \u00a0Stories were told of the “Bellevue Black Bottle” of the late 19th century, containing a mysterious potion supposedly used to winnow out the poorest patients. \u00a0And of the morgue there where, after a disaster, the bodies literally overflowed. \u00a0In 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory building on Washington Square had burned; more than one hundred young seamstresses had died; their blackened bodies had been stacked like cordwood on the piers behind the hospital. \u00a0Mothers from the Gas House district, the gritty, crime-ridden neighborhood just south of the hospital, used its name to threaten troublesome children; “I’ll send ye to Bellevue” was almost as dreaded a warning as “I’ll tell the Gerry Society on ye,” the nickname of the city’s Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, hated for its relentless policing tactics.<\/p>\n

The hospital’s famed psychopathic ward, home to the lunatics, the crazies, the suicidal, and the homicidal, only added to the rumors. \u00a0Its windows were barred; ivy climbed the stone walls – in the winter, their creepers tangled like old bones. \u00a0Passersby swore, swore that at night they could hear screams through the glass, see shadows stalking past the windows like unchained beasts.<\/p>\n

Culled from:\u00a0The Poisoner’s Handbook<\/a><\/p>\n

This reminds me of a saying my mother had when my siblings were children in Duluth, Minnesota: “You kids are gonna send me to Moose Lake!” (Moose Lake<\/a> being the local asylum, of course.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Dreaded Yet Truly Morbid Fact! In the early 20th century, some swore, peering through the black railings to the stone buildings with their arched windows and Corinthian columns, that the entire Bellevue Hospital complex in New York City was haunted. \u00a0Stories were told of the “Bellevue Black Bottle” of the late 19th century, containing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}