The site is the former Saratoga County Homestead Hospital that opened in 1913 as a tuberculosis sanitarium. It is located about 10 miles west of Saratoga Springs, NY. When a medical cure for TB was discovered the need for sanitariums was eliminated and the hospital eventually closed in 1960. It reopened a few years later as a senior center but closed in 1979. The property was sold in 1985 to a developer. Redevelopment plans fell through and the building was abandoned and fell into total disrepair. Over the intervening years it became a magnet tor the occult and thrill seekers who considered the building to be haunted. Amateur horror movies and You Tube videos were made inside the building. The ground floor windows and doorways are open and there are walls full of graffiti, rooms with mattresses, food containers, beer bottles etc. In 2014 a fire occurred and the structure was partially destroyed. Fire department officials toured the building after the fire and discovered friable asbestos pipe and duct insulation, drums and smaller containers of paint and chemicals. In the back is a mechanical graveyard with old boilers and pipes with asbestos insulation hanging off. The site is located in a State designated wetlands and is near a creek and is within the Great Sacandaga Lake watershed. On May 20, 2015 the site was referred to EPA from the NYSDEC for an assessment and possible Superfund removal action. NOTE: This site is an active site for an on-going CERCLA removal action (RV1) for abandoned chemical containers found in a waste water treatment plant and inside the main hospital building. It is also concurrently undergoing a removal assessment for asbestos insulation inside and outside the premises, so for clarity it is being designated unofficially, for the time being, as an RV2 to distinguish it from the RV1 activities.
