Comments

I love the orange light

Cheers motts, I was close

Motts, have you ever thought about publishing a book? I know I would purchase one!

Well said Rekrats!

Very true wmass - perhaps no one really knows unless they worked or stayed there. Spray paint is usually the easier and preferred method of leaving one's mark though.

Tiny, I'm not sure what is splattered on the bottom; it's too red to be blood, perhaps paint.

The lock secures a mesh grate door in a stairwell - each floor in every wing was a most likely a secured ward. Patients were originally separated by the severity of their illness and gender, and were not allowed to congregate unless at social events (dances, etc). If someone managed to get past the ward's stairwell door, I would imagine this gate as being a backup.

Do you know what their dreams taste like by any chance? :-)

Extremely insightful comment.

Ok here's another update.
If you can believe it I just drove an hour and a half two nights ago to check it out as I was anxious to see if anything was still left, and spent a couple hours in the dark very early morning going through it. The actual outer shell of the building is still fully standing, however most of the inside has been gutted. It's certainly no problem whatsoever getting in there now as practically every door and window is now completely opened up, lol. ;) There are large piles of rubble and some other construction equipment surrounding the place. A few sections of the inside like the basement and the gym are still intact, as well as some of the stairways so you can pretty much move throughout, although you certainly wanna be careful as I did see a couple openings in the floor, easy to see as long as you watch where you're going, where you could actually fall through to below. There's also a large hole in one section of the roof on the third floor.
I'm really kinda pissed as I procrastinated too much and didn't get to see the inside before it was torn apart, although you do get an interesting perspective now as well like in terms of how fortress-like the buildings construction was. It makes for some kinda weird and strange thoughts for me of how even in the mid 20th century it almost seems as if the primary concern in designing the place was to make it escape proof for the poor emotionally suffering young inhabitants trapped inside.
Like for example in addition to the outer walls which appear to be about a foot and a half thick from outside to inside wall, with a concrete block inner wall in addition to the outer red brick layer, all the original windows were essentially large rectangular hard (steel or iron?) grates comprised of several small (maybe 8 by 5 inch?) pains of glass so even if all the pains were broken the super hard probably cemented in grate would only allow someones arm to be stuck through to the outside. Although some of them as you can see in the pics I guess did have sections that could be opened although I imagine it wasn't very wide. And as is mentioned elsewhere in this gallery it appears that many of those later on had more modern hinged lockable security screens (like super strong versions of window screens), installed over them for additional escape-proofness. Also it seems that so many of the inside surfaces, wall and floors etc., were of very cold and hard materials like tile and glossy painted/porcelain brick walls and terrazzo-like flooring. And all the doors throughout were also very heavy looking.
It almost seems as if even when the place first opened it may have seemed a bit dated and kinda forbidding and scary for a troubled little child being forcibly brought in there.
But yet at the same time even though I was never there as a patient some part of me is still kinda pissed that the narrow minded city of Waltham is so eager to get rid of it.
I'd be interested in talking with anyone here about the place:
My MSN is schoolbed@live.com or yahoo is schoolbed1@yahoo.com :)
:)

Kelly: I think it might have been a vent of some kind.

Hope that helped, but I don't know for sure. Could you tell us please Motts?
Cheers and best wishes (keep safe)
Ash

redinkreign: Have you ever seen the Titanic? There was a lock like that on one of the gates that they locked passengers (steerage) behind while the first class got to the life boats, then woman and children were let through. Also, the elevators on the Titanic had that design and maybe a lock. I'm assuming it's either a type of indoor gate (used for what???) or an elevator.

Nuclear winter?