This is an old laundry room in the former state hospital/asylum in Traverse City, MI. It would not have been the institutional laundry room, but rather an occupational therapy laundry room, where they would teach the residents how to do their own laundry. They had a whole wing of a building dedicated to teaching things like cooking, cleaning, etc.
What fascinates me about this particular room is that it was abandoned over 40 years ago, the paint is peeling, the walls crumbling, and yet after all this time there is still paper towel in the dispenser dutifully waiting for the next set of wet hands...hands that will never come.
I am very glad to have had the opportunity to go through these buildings when I did, as they are now in the process of restoring the ones which can be restored and demolishing the ones which can not. Access is now severely limited, as they are now active construction/demolition sites. The photos which have been taken by myself and others are the only records that will be of what these places looked like.
