LINDA VISTA GHOSTS

THE PLACE: Linda Vista Hospital
610 S St Louis St, Los Angeles(map)

THE GHOST(S):

When this hospital (originally built for Santa Fe Railroad employees) opened in 1904, it may have had a simple design on the outside, but it was all state-of-the-art on the inside. Among the many (then) high-tech gadgets found here were automatic elevators (push-button), automatic fire escapes (using body weight to lower slowly), and automatic wheelchairs (???). Some of the revolutionary design elements used in the construction (and now commonplace) were individually heated/cooled rooms, park lands surrounding the hospital, large interconnected halls on each floor and passages to each building (which created one overall structure), so beds and bath tubs could be rolled easily from any room to any other room. Also, within this maze, the walls were curved at each intersection (to make turning easier for wheel chairs). The Hospital also featured tiled surgical rooms so cleaning could be done simply with a water hose. These features made it the most sanitary and best equipped hospital on the Pacific Coast, and one of the largest hospitals in the country at that time.

Unfortunately, these improvements (as with any hospital) are never enough to keep patients from dying within their walls. In over a hundred years, there has been a lot of death and sadness at this site (including legends of grave mistreatment of patients). So, it is no wonder that just about any kind of paranormal experience that one can imagine has happened within these buildings. The most famous phenomena (because of its appearance on the TV's "Ghost Adventures") is the disembodied laughter (sometimes humming) of a little girl echoing down the halls.

Additionally, local residents have seen this little girl looking out from the windows of this abandoned building. Additionally, these neighbors have seen a ghostly nun that walks up the hospitals driveway, and a well dressed (vanishing) man (possibly in a zoot suit) with shiny shoes that lingers near the back gate, leering at women , who walk to the cars parked on the adjoining street.

(to go back home...)