201 Comments Posted by MAX

Ironic how the building itself is dead and being "autopsied."

I grew up a few towns north of Danvers. Just the name "Danvers" conjured terrifying images. My high school teachers used to take tour groups there, but stopped after some patients objected to being viewed like "zoo animals." Thus, I didn't get to go. The way my civics teacher described the dazed patients, the squalor, and the stench probably would have discouraged my attendance anyway.
I used to get the shudders just driving by this place. It seemed to have an evil presence. One thing to bear in mind, "Hospital Hill" is the same hill where the Puritans hanged the accused Salem witches. In colonial times, Danvers was known as "Salem Village."
I thought "Session 9" was a turkey. The voice-over acting on those "tapes" was really cheesy, the acting in general was bad, the plot was a let-down and anti-climactic. I would have made a much darker, much spookier movie!

Serious business for mental patients: tobacco!

"I don't you cigarettes, or his, or his, or his, or his, or even YOUR cigarettes, I want MY cigarettes!!!!"
--Charlie Cheswick

Reminds me of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are."
Those old sofas must make a jolly reek!

Aw, so thoughtful, a slab just for our little Junior!

Motts,

Telling "ruins" the fun, eh? Arf arf arf!

I can imagine a rendition of "West Side Story" with the Jets and the Sharks collapsing, vomiting, convulsing, and passing out!

No, Lynne's probably right. The "gags" were more likely used for electroconvulsive therapy. Why they didn''t pick a nicer name, like "mouth guards," and why they were stored with "tap bells" is beyond me!

I could have ended up in place like Fernald or Pennhurst had I been born earlier in the century.
I was born in 1969. My IQ registers quite high, 137, but I have endured severed depression my entire life. A lot of it is hereditary, some was environmental.
I was depressed, withdrawn, didn't socialize well, and was easily frustrated in childhood. These exhibited behaviors might have classified me as an "almost."

Eh, not really. It would be scare if there was a bag of bones on the the thing! Otherwise, it's just a slab. Most of us will end up on a slab not much different from this, but by the time you're there, you don't care anymore.
How do you feel now, Java?

The story that made Geraldo Rivera famous was his expose of the Willowbrook state school on Long Island. I believe that was 1972.
As both Motts and Cecilia point out, parents with seriously handicapped children were encouraged to "put away" the child and forget about him/her.
Families often felt ashamed of having a retarded or mentally ill member, a holdover from the "eugenics" attitude prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This attitude of "denial" continued straight through the 1950s, in spite of muckraking books, such as "Shame of the States."
From what I've read, there was a lot of talk about reforms in the professional community in the '60s, but Geraldo's "Willowbrook" report grabbed America's dirty secret and flung it right in the face of the general public. Willowbrook may have paved the way for the Pennhurst lawsuit.

There's an old frame! It's probably solid steel and weighs a ton!

After the maintenance and temperature controls cease in these kinds of big buildings it doesn't take long for the paint to peel like that. Nature takes its course quite quickly.
Even if buildings are successfully sealed from vandals, the elements still have their way with the structure. I'm sure Motts can attest to this!

A lot of chronically homeless people are pretty strange characters. They don't necessarily share the same perspectives on the physical world as you and I, Bella!

Beautiful work with light and shadow. Very crisp and stark image.

RedDragon,
I would have thought ALL electricity to the joint was cut off long ago. Perhaps there was one connection they neglected to cut. I know fluorescents last a long time, but we're talking 20 years!