3,287 Comments for Danvers State Hospital

What's art therapy??

I can't believe it's going to be gone...
Way to destroy history...
:(

i have been in this room and seen these pictures also. sadly i couldnt get it on my video camera because of the darkness. i dont think these are the ones from the movie. the ones in the movie had artifical blood on them and pictures of the actor from the movie. i believe these are real pictures a patient put up. one picture i remember from this room was a man with a distorted face. his face looked awful. there were many other akward pictures in this room. whoms ever room this was must have been disturbed or sad.

Sad.....too sad. These buildings are so beutiful, and they want to put up crappy-looking boxes with windows. what a crime.....

Twug , i agree it is bull shit, the building is extremley beautiful

FUCK AVALON BAY - it is a crime to take such a beautiful peice of our history and demolish it- instead of apartments they should turn it into a muesum- FUCK THE LITTLE MEMORIAL, I WANT THE HOLE BUILDING, NOT JUST THE MAIN KIRKBRIDE TO BE PRESEVERED I HOPE THEY CAN'T SLEEP

wow you must have a pretty low self esteem to do something so fucked up as to do that

it truley sucks they sold the place for only 12 million and that they sold it in the first place it really is a beautiful building and should remain as the huanter of the dark for danvers

Great shot - Whilst capturing the spectacular architecture, the towers and arches assimilate the shape of the parking bays indicated in yellow on the ground, while in general the place seems very alone, the city lights in the background offer a contrast between the famous/infamous asylum now prohibited from human contact and the glow of civilisation seen beyond.

Jesus - powerful stuff, mari!

I know a gentleman who has lived in an institutional setting since the late 1920s. He has had many opportunities to move out, but he says the place is his home and the staff are his family. He also worked the institutional farm when they had one - took care of the hogs, chickens, and cows, worked the fields, planted and pulled potatoes, grew and harvested hay, slaughtered the hogs, gathered eggs, etc. He talks very longingly of the excellent food they used to have and all the marvelous stories of what happened over the years since he has been there - some good, some bad.

Like mari says, now most facilities have food service deliveries, cook/chill units, processed food, "appropriate diets", etc.

Ah, progress - can you beat it? ;-)

DHS was a thriving self contained community many years ago. Patients that could, would work from sunrise to sunset. on the farm and orchards. they would come to the kitchens and have meals of fresh killed chicken , beef ,pork, fresh fruit, and veggies. All animals were raised to feed the hospital, gardens were tendered. MY uncle( a Patient) worked on the farm. He would take produce to Boston and sell it to the markets and this is where they got the extra money to buy more animals and tools

They had fresh eggs in the morning- They were fed very well.

The women worked in the laundry, ironed all the sheets with those big rolling irons. They sewed and mendd clothes.

In the evening the patients were tired fom woking and would go right to bed and get a good night's sleep. The populatin in the 30-s could have been around 2000.

I use to sit with the old men after supper and they would tell me stories of how hard they worked and that it felt good to work outside all day.. These old men who now sat on a stinking unit mixed in with the young hoodlem drug addicts who knew how to work the system to get more drugs.
These poor old men who had nothing to do anymore but look out a caged window. They were so bored beause the only thing they did was watch the tv on the sunporch . They missed working the farm

but time does change and some idiot politician said that these patients were no more than slaves keeping a dying community going. so slowly in the 60's things were shut down little by little, cattle were sold at auction, pigs and chickens slaughtered until there was no more

the meals in the 80's consisted of Powdered eggs, frozen fish sticks, french fries, a meal we use to call mystery meat becuase we didn' know what the hell it was. hamburg hash and instant potatoes..spaghetti with little hard balls (I couldn't call them meat).These old guys never fogot the days when they had fresh milk, and cream, eggs, and chicken, steak and chops...and a fresh apple, peach or pear just for th plucking....

In1972 came the time when DHS was de-institutionalizing and the bonner building was going to house those who could not be released.

MY uncle was released. He had been there for 35 years (he was also one of the first people along with Rosemarie Kennedy to be labotomized).. He was so lost - He called DHS home...he lived for about a year. He was beaten and robbed of his checks by other patients that had become the first generation of essex counties homeless people. My uncle had a room, but we still had to look for him when we didn't see him for a few days. He died of a heart attack when he was take to the emergancy room to get stitches where they cracked his head open.

The old men knew my uncle and from that day on - no one could come near me or even threaten me. They watched over me until they died off one by one or when the laws changed again and they were sent to facililties that cared for the aged and mentally ill.. I cried like a baby.

The dangerous and vilolent people were there too. in DHS the were in those little square rooms. But when they all came to the bonner building it was a nightmare - bad and good, young and old were housed together until 1990..I left in 91 when the bonner building closed down , took the retirement and went back to teaching...

Does anyone know what the strange light is in the right side doorway? It looks odd and unlike a "normal" reflection...

Thank you for that info, Mari.
It is always great to hear from someone who has first hand knowledge on these places

THis is also the bomb shelter - it was painted white to ensure all the light in case of a nuclear war..The tracks are just that. You have to r ealize that this was a self contained community..these tunnels lead to the canning factory. laundry building. slaughter houses, fruit ochards etc.In winter all the food was stored in under gound root cellars. all canned goods were kept here. all food traveled from the tunnels to the hospital in winter - no one had to walk the snowy roads.Patients went to work in the cow barns, pig bans, chciken houses and all this was done through the use of the miles of tunnels that tranverse the hill

- DHS was an amazing place in the early 30-40's.
THose that coud, would work the farm, those that couldn't were locked in those little rooms. In those days when a child of 12 was not behaving normally they just dropped them off at the front and left. I had three patients that had been there since the age of 12 and there were many more on the other units.. They were still admitting in young teens in the 80's but this was stopped when the 6th floor tuned into DYS (Dept of Youth Services. (I worked in the Bonner Building)

great pic