PHOTOS: Eerie times at an old Boyle Heights hospital
A crew member is silhouetted against the exterior of Linda Vista Community Hospital during a film shoot at the allegedly haunted site in Boyle Heights. The abandoned hospital, where railroad workers with tuberculosis once were cared for in furnished tents, has been used as a location for the movies “Outbreak,” “End of Days” and “Pearl Harbor” and the pilot episode of the television show “ER.” (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Caretaker Jesus Mena, 73, looks through a window at Linda Vista Community Hospital. He walks the halls alone -- flashlight in hand, keys clinking on his leg -- like an orderly making his final rounds. In less than two decades, he’s seen the building go from community hub to haunted house. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Not far from the hospital’s real morgue, Mena stands inside a Hollywood replica used by film crews. He sometimes stuck around until 1 or 2 a.m. to wait for them to finish. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Mena makes his morning rounds to see if there have been any break-ins. “The only monsters around here are those hoodlums who won’t let this building rest,” he says. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Actors and extras with the Cartoon Network show “Dude, What Would Happen” take a break from filming in a dingy room inside the hospital. Many cast members say they’ve had experiences on the site that they can’t explain. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Film crew members make their way past a gurney in a hospital hallway. No one can say what came first: the hauntings or the haunted sets. But it is those who are paid to make the place look creepy who are often the most creeped out. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
A room once used to house patients is now filled with graffiti left by film crews. The messages are scrawled with spray paint, chalk and felt-tip markers. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Prop master Bonnie Temple, 38, enters the emergency ward through the hospital’s old ambulance bay. She was on site filming a television show. “Everything is fine in most of the building, but there are places where the air suddenly changes,” she said. “There’s a feeling that if I go any further, if I keep walking in that direction, something’s going to get me.” (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Film crew member David Mayo walks down a deserted hallway in the hospital. Crews turned neglected patient rooms and corridors into jail cells, chapels, classrooms and lofts, then insane asylums and interrogation rooms, then science labs and party scenes. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
A full moon rises over Linda Vista Community Hospital. The entrance once was lush, lined with flowers and palm trees, and the hospital on the hill was a place for nursing people back to life, not for searching out the dead. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
