Continuing the theme of unloved arcade machines, this image of two cabinets left abaondoned in the Forest Haven Children’s Development Center is arresting.

Based in Laurel, Maryland, Forest Haven was closed down in 1991 by the federal court for its poor conditions and abuse of patients.

Katherine Boo’s article for the Washington Post, which is primarily focused on what happened to the institution’s residents after it closed its doors, provides some haunting glimpses of what life was like for those who lived there.

Indeed, she describes Forest Haven in cruder, but probably more accurate terms than Wikipedia, as a “notorious asylum for the retarded”.

One wonders what role these two machines played in their owners’ lives; whether they brought joy and texture to the residents’ daily routine, or whether they then, as now, stood as an unused, unloved part of the institution’s background furniture.

Much of the attraction of videogames to the human mind is their tight, reliable rulesets and solid, immovable frameworks which can prove cathartic in this world of flexible laws and uncertain futures. One hopes that, in their day, these cabinets brightened what, by all accounts, must have been a very dark existence for their players.

The photo set can be seen in full here