State Property

I've lived in the area since 1993, the same year the hospital closed.
For years former mental patients drifted about the streets of Northampton. There are still some about, but their numbers have thinned in the past several years.
I know people who have gone poking around in the old buildings, but I always steered clear of the place. Structural frailties, collapsed floors, tunnels full of water, asbestos everywhere...NO THANKS!

Here's an interesting perspective on Asylums, focussing on Northampton in a few places.

http://cssvc.health.webmd.compuserve.com/content/article/29/1728_67929

I love this quote from AutumnTwin's link ""This is the first time I have ever heard of an institution, which is usually reviled, being celebrated, and the people who worked there and were treated there being honored," says John Talbott, MD,"

Because that is how I see Motts' galleries. As these buildings being celebrated, and with the input of some very informed posters, those who lived here are also honored.

The little covered attire on top of the building was where the alarm that one could hear all over the city. It was like two long, one short, one long, would give you where the emergency was taking place. It could have been a fire, someone who couldn't be controlled. We employees carried a little care that gave us the location where the emergency was taking place and that all personell was duty bound to show up at that building whether one was working or you were at home and heard where the emergency was taking place.

We still do that where I work. The steam plant whistle blasts out codes for missing people, fire alarms, indications when it's safe to return to the buildings, other disaster drills, etc.

Lynne, could tell me if I am correct, an Asylum is for the mentally ill and a Sanatorium is like a hospital for illnesses such as TB, I am not sure if I have this right, let me know 8-) thanks Renee

The terms used to be interchangeable. "Asylum" means a haven or a sanctuary and "sanitarium" or "sanitorium" is a place where a person is to be restored to health, either mentally or physically. These days most people think of asylum more negatively, as in "lunatic asylum" or "mental asylum," and they are put in mind of physical diseases with the term sanitarium, since there were so many TB sanitariums.

I lived here for a year....I ws not crazy, I was not insane....I was living in a world of deep pain and anger..i was lashing out at anyone and everyone...STRANGE BUT TRUE....Northhamton State Hospital saved my life!! I saw what would happen to me if i did not deal with my internal pain..my family secret...I also saw what would happen to me if i did deal with and come clean about my hidden past...so I spoke out of my abuse, I let the staff, doctors, mha"s and my therapist know everything...I screamed, yelled, cried and then I healed
my heart and soul. I grew up,I stopped self abuse, I no longer hated men, but grew to trust them...If the walls of Northhampton Hospital could talk..my story would be told..as I am sure the story of many others would be told, good, bad happy and sad...in my case the hospital was a blessing...in the case of many others, the walls of the hospital is where lives ended, via mind insanity, suicide and or just natural death.

Thanks for sharing, dee dee. I'm glad that you overcame a lot, and that you are doing well now!

i grew up in Northampton, and this place was, and still is, although it has been demolished recently, an extremity of my soul, of my being, here, in this place. a few years ago, i took some pictures of the place myself. toy polaroids. (they're lovely!) i wanted to say that this gallery of photos called "overcast" are so lovely. they feel to me like this phantom extremity which has been recently amputated from my landscape...capture the beauty of this misled complex.

just wondering if the northhamptonhospital has been completely torn down or if anyone can go visit whats left of it its so erery looking it would be a placei wouldn't want be at night