Violent Ward

wow. the red walls are quite unsettling.

The walls give me a feeling of emptiness.

Hmm... Isn't a voilent ward supposed to be painted in a calming color? That red doesn't look all that calming to me...

very weird color for a violent ward ... o.O

I agree with 'hrm'. It doesn't make sense that the shade of red used would be used, really. It doesn't look as calming as a shade of light green, yellow, or even light pink.

Probably a dumb question but how do we know it's the "violent ward"? Was there a sign or something? Seems kind of rude if there was. That's like saying "Here's where we keep the real crazy ones".

who cares if it was the violent ward or not, the picture is outstanding, the green looks like its literally dripping from the ceiling down the walls.

Mr. Motts is quite correct. The "prettier", more well-behaved patients were placed closer to the administration section up toward the front. The less tractable and "curable" a patient was thought to be, the farther back they were placed.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where the phrase "the back wards" comes from. :-)

Hey! Looka this! Just what we were saying earlier! :-)

http://www.filmakers.com/indivs/BackWardsBackStreets.htm

I could only imagine if those colors were fresh and vibrant when still in use and how the sense of dread must have lurked in the hallway...and the feelings of hopelessness for any patients who should see those colors and that cathedral ceiling.

Motts, do you have any recommendations or links to Kirkbride deisgn and/or plans? I'm wondering where the layout suggestions can be found (as an architecture buff, I love stuff like this)

Here are some:
http://www.kirkbridebuildings.com/links.html
I am sure Motts has more. His site needs to be on this list, however . . .

Blood red....oh yes, real perfect for the violent ward *groan*

Maybe they colored the wards according to the patient's behavior and not the other way around.....

geezzzz, i wonder what kind of patient got to live in the wards that were painted black (besides Mick Jagger of course...)

Perhaps the color choice for the walls served as an unofficial experiment. I can close my eyes and hear the moans, screams, and whimpers as they echo down the corridor.

Lynne thank you for the Kirkbride link, I'll be checking it out.

This shot reeks of lonliness and despair..... I can't imagine the emotional pain and torment the unfortunate people taken here must have experienced in their lives to make them so violent.....

If you have a serious mental illness you do not necessarily need to have gone through any traumatic environmental experiences to cause a crisis; your biochemistry does all that for you. It takes all environmental stimuli and warps them. Yes, it is worse if terrible things happen to you in your life, but you can have the perfect, ideal life and a serious mental illness will twist and warp whatever your experiences are. It is not usually the case that people are "driven crazy" by life or by other people; it depends on the amount of "resources" that your biology gives you in the first place. If you are prone (genetically) to a specific form of mental illness it takes fewer environmental "prompts" to cause problems. If you are lucky enough to be born without much in the way of a pre-determined genetic problem you can be in some pretty terrible environments and come out all right.

I went to graduate school with a woman whose parents had each been in a different Nazi death camp in WWII, and she was quite well-adjusted and her parents were two of the sweetest little old people you'd ever meet.

I also had a young college student in counseling from a very rich family (read: very, very, very, very, very rich) and she was suicidal because she did not get in the "correct" sorority. Another was upset because she couldn't figure how many people to invite to her parents' yacht for spring break. (Both true stories - details changed slightly to protect the identities - etc.)

Most of us are somewhere in the middle and need a combination of coping skills issues, a predetermined genetic disease process, and some environmental stressors to tip us over the edge.

The type of violence we see in a "violent ward" is usually the result of a schizophrenic or psychotic process (or a physiological process such as dementia, alcoholism, or drug use) and rarely the result of sociopaths, such as your Ted Bundy types. Those folks are generally much more self-controlled, especially in situations like this.

Gack! I sound like I am teaching class! Sorry 'bout that! :-)

Having now read a good portion of the comments on this site, I find the viewpoints of some of the individuals quite interesting. In order to objectively look at these institutions one must leave their preconceived notions behind. Many of you are assuming that they were all torture chambers and all of these people were extremely tormeted because of the current condition of these buildings and they now look very scary. When these hospitals were in operation, they looked much better. Yes, people were mistreated at times in these institutions and the quality of care was nothing compared to the care that is now offered to individuals.

It seems what many people are saying is that these patients were cared for in an unethical way. This leads me to the essence of "Ethics". The word ethics means "societal norms". Therefore, unethical treatment would be treating the patients in a way which was not acceptable to society. Treating the mentally ill as second class citizens was very much accepted during those days. Why do you think all those people were there? If your family did not have the means or the time or interest in you to care for you properly, you wound up here. What I'm saying is that the staff wasn't acting unethically if the care they were providing was consistent with the expectations of society at that time. As time went on, society changed it's view of the care of the mentally ill or developmentally delayed. That said, there is no excuse for abuse. That was wrong and should not have happened but the general operation of most of these institutions was fairly consistent, at least in the beginning, with societal expectations.

Another thing I' m finding interesting from the site is how many people think they see ghosts in the photographs. There may be, and likely are, ghosts at these sites but I doubt that you're going to find one in a photograph on a website. Since Motts is an artist, I bet he goes over every pic very carefully. If there was a ghost in a photo, I think he would have seen it. I get a chuckle out of the few people who post after each pic "Did you see the girl over there?" or "Do you see the body in the corner?" It's funny.

I'm really enjoying reading your insights, Lynne. They can only come for someone with many years of experience. There are not enough people with that sort of dedication.

BTW, the beginning of my post was not meant to be know-it-all like. I have a bit of experience with these situations. My uncle who is older now is developmentally delayed and was in a home for children with limitations. The home was closed down due to abuse and he now receives money from a class action lawsuit. Bad things happened back then but they weren't all terrible all the time.

Mariposa,
You took the time to write a lenghtly analysis of your opinion / experiences and what you found here written on the board by other viewers. I think perhaps you took what was being said about past practice out of context, I believe the point here is not that people were tortured so much by staff, or doctors, more-so - that there were people who endured the disease (dis - ease) of so called mental ilness and were placed into Asylums to live out their life in a lock down situation.
We, today, look back and see that much of our acceptable behavior might have warranted that we be placed in an asylum in the past... for things such as - having a child out of wedlock, or being promiscuous, abusing alcohol, even being indigent was enough to place you in an Asylum.... this I believe is where the "torture" aspect is being view from..... these people would not have been insane, but at that time, perhaps only different. (that would be torture) Looking at that as a potential in our own lives is a very scary thought. And,,,.. on top of that there were real abuses - as you stated.....

Lastly, I am one of those whom you are amused by, as I myself have looked at a number of Motts pictures and see what appears to be the image of a person in spirit form..... perhaps you need to look at the pictures again.... What exactly would "Motts carefully going on each picture " acomplish? Have you asked Mr Motts if he has seen anything in any of his pictures? There are a few that he says he cannot explain , such as why a person / spirit is staring through a window in one shot he took and another white image in a window of what seems to be a man with his hand over his brow.....
Why would the fact that everyone else sees these images and you don't cause you to chuckle at Them????

I definitely see where you are coming from Mariposa, and Silkster as well. I think that causes for mistreatment were that these types of illnesses were just not understood. People just didn't know what to do. And they still are not completely understood. Having suffered with bad anxiety for most of my life, I've been treated by many different people. Nothing ever warranted me to a hospital, but I have found that if you haven't suffered one of these illnesses yourself, you just can't understand. Sometimes I get really mad by things people say - like "breathe deeply" and then you'll be fine. Uh, no! That may work for the average person who's nervous before a test, but breathing deeply isn't going to solve all your problems. But back to what I was saying, people tend to fear the unknown - back in the day I'm sure many staff were fearful of some of the patients, not knowing what to expect of their action. I don't think most mistreatment was out of malicious intent - they just didn't know what to do. However, within the last half century or so, as new scientific developments have advanced, these illnesses are better understood, so treatment has greatly improved. I agree with Silkster in the fact that we often look at these pictures from a patients' point of view. It must be awful to be stuck in an instition all your life no matter how nice people are. And the illness in itself is enough. I don't care if I was in Candyland, the illness makes you suffer.

As for the specters that we spot in the photos, we are, for the most part, having fun. Of course there's definitely something that we see, but its enjoyable to discuss such. Who's know whether its real or not, its fun for the imagination.

Oh my god, those walls are creepy.

Thanks again Lynne for your insight. I understand that some have emotional problems as a result of trauma, and I guess what I was referring to was the emotional pain someone with mental illness must endure. I had an aunt who was challenged with mental illness all of her life, and it was always so heartbreaking to watch her going through her inner terrors and pain. Thank God she's finally at peace now........and thank God for people like you who try to make their lives better.

the aura of that ward just seems so malevolent!

Thanks for all the info guys. It's great to read all your comments, they truly add to Motts photos and his info, The comments truly complement his work.

I'm pretty sure these places are indeed haunted Mariposa and yes some of those photos like the ones in which we see faces are simply optical illusions but that does not detract from the fact that negative energy builds and resides over the years and I am pretty certain we are going to be getting more photos on this site with unexplained anomalies.

These discussions are very interesting. The photograph is stunning and captures the emotions of such a place quite well.

Does anyone else find it interesting that the string ends in this ? I think it's creepy.

I've been in that hallway, yeah it's kinda creepy but not horrible..The vibe isn't all that bad..Well..Just letting you know..Also to note, there was quite a bit of string all over the place, it's really easy to get lost in the main building. All the halls kinda look a like and if you're looking around and not paying attention to where you are excatly, it's real easy to forget that you're 2 floors up or 3 floors up, or one floor down...

Didn't read all the comments...

Red was used to signify the most mentally deranged of patients until they later found out that red induces violence... They even used red straight jackets for the most extreme cases... When it was discovered that red infact induced violence they immediately stopped the use of it.

Yet another pic that could be from "Snake Pit" Mr. Motts, if you haven't seen that movie, I would highly recommend it. That goes for everyone.

The cieling seems to be growing evil.. mold, evil mold, not spirits or ghosts, just mold. Evil vile mold, bent on the destruction of this place, but its mold all the same.

somehow the thought of walking down that hallway terrifies me. i dont know why i cant explain it but just the thought of it makes my skin crawl

I find it interesting that in almost all of the other rooms, and along the walls of the other wards, the colors are very neutral, but in the violent ward, the colors are very aggressive....could there be some sort of mental impact caused by this color?

When you are angy that is one of the colours you see, and yes it is strangely calming

I don't normally comment on pictures although I find them facinating. You will have to excuse my spelling. Being in a hurry tends to make me spell bad. In reference to the reasons that people were put in these places. My Great Aunt was put into the one in walworth county wisconsin at the age of 15 because she got pregnant. she was there untill she turned 92 years old. I dont think she was too unhappy considering that about 20 yrs after she was admitted she chose to stay as a resident staff. Needless to say shes gone now. Her last days spent in a nursing home accross the street from the asylum. I guess we think its sad because we have so much freedom. But for her it was life. Sorry if it sounds stupid but I felt compelled

wolfcry,

Great story, great insights - thanks!

what...is with the top half of the walls and the ceiling?....if you flipped the hallway upside down it'd be like walking the hallway to hell....scum green with unreachable doors and only one "exit"....gruesome pic...but beautiful

To me it looks like the hallway of a skate center. I'm interested in the rope leading to the door. "okay, I will tie this rope to my waist. If i'm not back, don't come for me pull me out with this rope"

thats a good thought Jo...look like the rope broke though....poor Jimmy :(

Poor, poor Jimmy. Atleast he made it to a morgue, not sure about that one, but a morgue.

haha yeah perhaps this one

http://www.opacity.us/image1501.htm

till his skater friends trashed it that is

That is one nasty looking ceiling and upper walls.It's different than the lower walls. Red and Mucous Green wonderful combination. wait the ceiling looks gray.

so dreary

i agree with a lot of u, those walls are not very calming and it is kinda creepy!

seeing this picture was a gut punch. beautiful, the pain is almost tangible.

haunting.
what bothers me more than the despair and decay (both of the buildings and the lives they housed) is the mindset of people who describe viewing these sorts of environments as "orgasmic" (not seen in this msg section but just as a result of browsing)
i wonder if they ever think about what theyre seeing above and beyond the spectacular photography.
the only conclusion that i can draw is that theyre 13 and not yet equipped with the ability to empathise or imagine.

maybe it's not a lack of empathy. maybe it's more that these are places that those with an interest might otherwise never get to see. i personally think motts photographs in an extremely emotional way, which is dispassionate and personal at the same time. i haven't explained that very well...um...i think what i'm trying to say is that everyone's response is valid to them. appreciation is a personal thing - what you "get", someone else may not - it doesn't mean they're not thinking, it just means they're not writing it down.

right. i'll shut up now

*wanders off*

Where was the ward located? For some reason they always seem to put the violent ward farthest away from whe center of the building. At Danvers, the violent wards, were on the third floor in the A and J building. So if the ward is as far away from the center of a Kirkbride style building, as you can get, it's the violent ward. Guaranteed to be a major hike when a general help call is made.

Would you say it was about as far from where visitors might see the vilent people as possible?

Because of my job I've been to a number of the state hospitals throughout the Commonwealth. In cluding Northampton Had a friend who worked as a SW at Northampton We used to trade war stories

It (the hallway)looks remarkably clean complared to some of the pictures I have seen on here. It almost looks like someone swept .

I couldn't even imagine getting lost in a place like this! As far as everyone elses comments; we have come a long way treating mental illness; since the early or even middle 1900's. And the mind is still very complicated to understand, even today. I'm sure, that many years ago, they did the best they could with what know-how they had. They REALLY didn't know how to treat the mentally disturbed; imagine having a handi-capped child and you alone would have that responsibility and no one would know what to do? I'm sure it was very fraustrating. But I DO know people got sent away back then for any reason, not just having some mental disorder. When I was young, Iused to be terrified because whenever I mis-behaved my mom would say she'd send me away to a home. You know, I never forgot that. I also have suffered from depression for the last 15 years and alot of people have said to me that I don't need to take medication; that I could control it. It's not that you WANT to feel that way and you CAN'T always control it. I thank God they have medicine out there now that CAN help people! Imagine what they went through without any decent medication or medical help to support them.

I wounder what Tom Cruise would say?

OMG Nancy, My mother would tell me the same thing! "If you don't stop crying", I'm gonna send you to KALAMAZOO STATE HOSP! Nice, really made me feel like I could talk to her about my problems! I have never forgotten that cruelness!!!!

the pain and suffering of the patients is visible in the hallway.

Oooohhhh...this looks so cool!

Sorry, I'm an avid horror fan and plan on making my own horror film. One of my faves just happens to be "House on Haunted Hill" (1999). Go figure!

this is an especially beautiful photograph. movind, haunting and beautiful.

Mott,

Once again, words fail me... the depth of feeling in this picture is beyond words..the despair and pain that these particular walls must have seen during those 100 and some years boggles the mind and saddens the soul
( By pain I'm not referring to staff abuse or anything the like of that, merely referring to the deep psychatric and emotional pain and suffering that these and all patients here more than likely experienced. Believe me, even though I have never been hospitalized and have what is considered a "mild case" of bipolar-relative term- I know full well the pain and despair that can run through the unwell mind, and the prisons that are of its own making)

Lynn,
I for one would LOVE to have you as my psych teacher/professor! ;)

Just looking at those walls makes me angry already! I've always thought that these hospitals tried to help patients, but looking at this site, I've changed my mind.

now were talking weird people;

Nothing like blood red walls for the violent ward.

These hallways seem never ending. The red would be a strange color anywhere!!

Red walls, um, fitting

Maybe they're red so you don't notice the blood

Has anyone seen the movie called "Madhouse"? It´s sooo cool and very frightening. Go rent it :-)

this whole picture just screams pain and dispair to me. but i love it.

Unreal.
This place looks horrible.

pitiful no toilet in the locked rooms....feces smeared and cold....icy cold, nasty.........was that a way to treat rape victims and runaways????

hey....i'd better not talk....one dr. said give me a lobotomy if i tell it........people died in those places, and were killed, raped, drugged into living ? zombism..........cruel stinking rotten sadistic sytem......one easy way for the government to lock people up incommunicado without trial........here in the good old usa..........

Hiya, if you are the person who took this photo, is it possible to get in the old building still today? it would be an amazing film setting, would you let me know cheers :D
cartoon_demons@hotmail.co.uk

...I suddenly need to look up some semantics.

Kind of a bad color for a violet ward, no? It seems like it'd make a whole lot more sense to put a calming color, like light blue, in a ward where people actually NEED to be calmed down. it's like the walls are mocking the patients...

This picture scares the s**t outta me.

I tried to read thetough the comments, but there are so many. Originally I just wanted to say that red is a color of passions, it evokes feelings like anger and hatered, but it can go to the other end of the scale and evoke love feelings, or sexual stimulation. Red is also known to evoke feelings of hunger, thats why they tell you not to paint your kitchen that color. As for mental illness, if this was already said I apologize, I suffer from depression, I used to be suicidal, but I am not anymore, I found JESUS. My friend Heather is bi-polar, it just happened, she grew up in the modern "leave it to Beaver' family... so mental illness can be a cause of your environment, past, present or future... people facing deathe have been known to go mad, but mental illness can also be genetic, depression runs in my family, but my family also puts the fun in dysfunctional. But I want to add another one to the list, lack of GOD... I've seen illness cured, both physical and mental, addictions and other problems ended because of JESUS.

This is amazing.. the emptiness.. love it

there's the string again...

Er- well- my impressions here are that former emotions have colored the very walls.... just an attempt to add a little prose to the visual poetry...