Hillside Nursing Home

Hillside Nursing Home in Avondale consisted of Parkside and Oakside Nursing Homes. Parkside was located in a decrepit cinder block brick-faced two-story structure, whereas Oakside resided a very old former residence. The nursing home featured 67 certified and licensed beds spread amongst two structures, and both locations were very much wide open and accessible.

 

The last document with a date that we found was a certificate of inspection that dated to March 16, 1999 and was set to expire on March 1, 2000.

 

Parkside was a disgusting 1960s-era nursing home. The furniture that existed was very dated and probably original. The main activity room had cheap chandeliers and mirrors. And the rooms were all of a depressingly white color that overlooked either a very narrow and small courtyard, or crap.

 

Oakside was much nicer, in that handprints of varying colors were imprinted on the first floor walls; in the dark, they were creepy. Some rooms had peeling white wallpaper that revealed hues of dark green and red. Light switches were actually light buttons. Rooms featured a solitary florescent-tube unit. It had to be depressing.

 

And it is of no shock that the nursing home received a "D" grade.

 

Parkside Nursing Home

 

 

 

Although the image quality is questionable, the pattern of radiating mold is quite interesting.

 

 

Oakside Nursing Home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy this little slice of Avondale!

Neat!

I've noticed that place, it's weird how bad the neighborhood gets north and east of the zoo.

Wow, that was some of the most horrifying photos Ive ever seen.  I really enjoy the photos on this site more than at galleries.

It's amazing how fast structures can fall apart when they're unused and not maintained. In recent years the process has been accelerated by scrappers ripping out ceilings and walls to get at copper wiring and plumbing.

 

Even the best nursing homes are unpleasant for me because they remind me of hospitals where I've spent much time. Worse than hospitals, because hospitals are meant to be places of healing and restoration, whereas a lot of nursing home patients are in irreversible decline with failing minds and bodies. There's no healing expected, just the alleviation of pain and discomfort insofar as is possible.

In the National Lampoon in the 1970's there was a comic called "Dirty Duck and Weevil". One of the characters in it was named "Rabbi Birdman" and he ran a filthy, Dickensian nursing home. Being the NatLamp, the plots were sick and quite funny.  :evil:

 

A friend in high school pointed out the comic to me just as we were checking my grandma into a local nursing home... :(

So sad.  The pics are great.  I wonder what the place was like when it actually had residents. 

Parkside was pretty damn depressing. Plastic coverings over the walls, white paint, florescent bulbs, cheap everything. Oakside was moreso depressing; cheap wallpaper covering, florescent lighting, exposed conduit piping.

 

As I told Ronny and Zach who were with me, if I was put in that place, I'd either drug myself to death or escape.

It's amazing how fast structures can fall apart when they're unused and not maintained.

 

I was thinking the same thing.  Those exterior shots of Oakside are amazing...thanks Sherman.

As I told Ronny and Zach who were with me, if I was put in that place, I'd either drug myself to death or escape.

 

By the time they end up in one of those places, most people are incapable of doing either. Chain smoke, drink to excess, and eat lots of saturated fats, and maybe you'll be lucky enough to die of a sudden massive stroke or heart attack before you end up in one of them. Even if that doesn't work, at least you haven't lived the deprived life of an ascetic and then ended up in one.

 

A lot of people in nursing homes could still function on some level outside despite their physical disabilities if it weren't for dementia. My mom is 97 and has been in a nursing home for more than four years, starting before she was almost completely bedfast, and I attribute it to her refusing adequate treatment for her high blood pressure and spending too much time watching and listening to evangelical preachers on TV and radio and not challenging her mind.

 

Her sister, a retired M.D., is three years younger and has to use a wheelchair to get around; she's in worse physical shape than Mom was when Mom went into the nursing home, but she has kept her mind active with reading, studying, solving puzzles, and listening to scientific and other lectures on tape, and she's still living at home with once-daily visits from a caregiver who makes breakfast and coffee and gets groceries. She's still 120 percent mentally and I would never try to fib to her because her bullshit detector still works as well as it did sixty years ago when I was a little kid.

 

Not much is known yet about the causes or possible treatments for Alzheimer's, but I think it's generally accepted that mental laziness hastens decline in cognitive function.