Crews Demolish Mayview State Hospital

Mayview State Hospital closed at the end of 2008, ending its 115 years as an institution for the mentally ill on its grounds in South Fayette and Upper St. Clair townships.

It was the last such facility in Allegheny County.

Many of the buildings are so close to Mayview Road that passing motorists can’t help but see their deteriorating condition, or the vegetation that has been overwhelming the property. They also have noticed that some of the structures now lie in rubble, victims of the proverbial wrecking ball.

The state sold the property in 2010, and the owners are in the process of methodically removing what remains of the hospital’s 39 buildings, to make way for a new business park.

The hospital, originally called Marshalsea, opened in 1893. By 1934, the Pittsburgh City Home and Hospital at Mayview had 4,200 patients and 450 staff members.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania took over operation from the city in 1941. The complex once included a working farm, the only surviving remnant of which is a large brick barn next to what now is the Community and Recreation Center in Upper St. Clair. .

By 2007, when the state announced it would close the hospital the following year, 225 patients remained. In November 2008, the final 47 remaining forensic patients were moved to Torrance State Hospital in Derry, PA.

As of Dec. 31 of that year, Mayview State Hospital was history. And someday, all the constituted its physical presence will be history, too.