That water tower *rules*.

Whereabouts is this place in relation to Boston?

That is a fantastically Gothic shot.

Suddenly I have a mental image of stepping out of a door onto a floor that isn't there, looking around unhappily for a couple of seconds Sylvester-style, before plunging to the bottom with a little puff of smoke, just like in the old cartoons...

On second thoughts, I'm glad it only happens in cartoons :-)

Twug, from what I've read about the Danvers proposals, the outer buildings are all to be demolished and the Kirkbride badly mutilated. The roof and top floor will be removed and a new roof fitted, and the wings cut right back, almost to the main building.

And they call this preservation - it's a criminal act of wanton vandalism, nothing more. I can't remember the URL of the page I saw this on but I think it may be one of the Danvers preservation groups linked from the main Danvers page of Motts' site.

I can't help thinking that if we had buildings like this in England, they'd be so well-protected that the developers wouldn't be able to paint the walls a different colour without fillingout twenty forms in triplicate. That's how strict we are here about things like this. Too damn right I say.

is Danvers on the National Register of Historic Places? And if so, what weight does this carry in planning terms?

They really don't make 'em like they used to. Such a shame that this will soon be lost forever.

One day we'll wake up and realise that our architectural history consists of corrugated tin supermarkets and flat-pack housing, because anything of any value has long since been ton down.

I'm not quite such a purist as Twug (though I understand her dislike of this stuff) in that I don't consider all graffiti to be unattractive and without merit. Some 'urban art' undoubtedly requires considerable graphical ability. However there is definitely a time and a place for it, and this is not it, especially as the work itself is of the crudest, ugliest type. As someone else said, no doubt scrawled by some wannabe gangsta (read bored white middle-class kid trying to impress his pals....)

This room reminds me of the 'candy cane dungeon' at Pennhurst and although it's naturally lit, it's almost as creepy...

Good grief.

Quite a shock, I'd imagine, to push open a door or turn a corner and suddenly find yourself staring down a yawning, three-storey hole!

Another admin building, another beautiful stairwell. Deja vu anyone?

"perspective" "think" even....

The perspectiv on this is incredible. It's leading my eye somewhere I don't hink it want's to go....

Wow.

Looks more like Freddy Krueger's chair :D

And Twug, I'm with you on the 'lonely chair' book. It's the lighting that makes these shots.

Lynne, I think you need to get yourself along to Danvers before they turn it into a yuppie zoo and see if you can 'liberate' some of the artefacts (with permission, of course...)

I bet this place was scary even when it was open. Hardly Six Flags is it? :-)

Add a muzzle and you're away :D

Almost looks as though the lights are on... I know it's just the way the light from the window is hitting them, but this place didn't have power, did it?

(Scary thought with all that water about!)

Sounds like the Catskills would be a good place to start hunting, JLP!

In some ways I still feel very sad for this place. Most of the places I stayed in as a child weren't especially pretty... the often deteriorating resorts and holiday parks of the South Coast of England, seeing out their twilight years by catering for the few too stubborn or too poor to jet off to 'the continent' like everyone else...

You don't care when you're ten or eleven that the carpets are threadbare, the decor is twenty years out-of-date or that the place is surrounded by the peeling hulks of hotels and boarded-up shops that have already succumbed to the inevitable.

Sadly I suspect there's no-one going to step in and save the Pines from the bulldozer - those flat roofs have undoubtedly doomed the place. Looking at the shots it seems that almost every one has failed, resulting in almost unbelievable water damage that would cost millions to even start putting right :(

Lynne, yet another fab post. I suspect most of the '"death = cool" brigade are 13 year-old wannabe goths who talk about corpses and cadavers yet would no doubt wee themselves if they ever came across a real one - especially in one of these places. The same people who hang around drinking cider in graveyards and breaking into crypts so they can post it on their cliched web pages with a load of dumb poetry to show how very 'alternative' they are. Fortunately they usually grow out of it. I think you were very restrained in your choice of the word 'asshat'. Anyway my Mom has a saying... "the dead can't hurt you, it's the living you need to watch out for!" So true...

No doubt why it was installed Peter! I wonder if the people who eventually re-fit this place (or more likely, tear it down) will appreciate the aesthetic and financial value of that centrepiece or whether it will just be smashed and slung in a skip along with those hideous couches :(

I'd still have serious qualms about removing something like that even though it is beautiful and its eventual destruction almost inevitable. Not the easiest thing to slip under your jacket and carry back to the car either... even if it weren't suspended 20 feet from the ground!

Excited, it's against the policy of this site to post access info or detailed directions here so you probably won't have much luck. Instead, I'd suggest El Peecho's Pennhurst site ( http://www.elpeecho.co...nhurst/pennhurst.htm ) which gives quite a lot of info and links to discussion boards about Pennhurst past & present.

What I would say is take time to research the place before you go, watch the newsreel and try to understand what Pennhurst represented and some of the terrible things that took place there. Don't be a muppet and damage it or take souvenirs, treat it with the respect that Motts did and that I would if I had ever had the opportunity to take a look around.

I'm English and my girlfriend is American... and the light-hearted 'to-may-to / to-mah-to' banter still tickles us lol! Not to mention the occasional confusion over vocabulary (especially regarding food items for some reason!?!) Well, as the old saying goes, we are two nations 'divided by a common language'. It's quite interesting to find out about the origins of the subtle differences in our speech and cultures...

I suppose someone wants the land to cover in identical 'executive' homes with hot tubs and double garages or some such rubbish.

I wonder if the missile silo is still there? I read an account on a UE site of two kids who explored one in New Mexico. This country is full of disused Cold War nuclear bunkers and underground command centres, I guess good old Blighty would have been first in the line of fire if the Soviets had ever decided to get bolshy lol...

Well said about grafitti. The good stuff belongs on the walls of youth centres and other specified places... MAYBE even brightening up dull concrete bridges and culverts... in other words where it's appreciated rather than being an eyesore on something beautiful. Tags on the other hand are just dumb. Why the desire to leave a mark anyway?

Either way, this dish would still be an amazing place to wath the stars with a loved one.

The fine line between order and chaos.

Chey, in Michele's defense I think the images of Byberry on this site show that not everyone shares our respect for these places. Many people just see a derelict building as a place to take drugs and party, and as a result they quickly become an eyesore and a hazard.

Sadly there's no way of controlling those who get inside - indeed the 'asshats' are less likely to be deterred by barbed wire and sealed entrances as they just smash their way in.

Put another way, would you want a Byberry in your neighbourhood?