Rooms

i just got a cold chill, amazing

The peeling paint, the abject sameness. It's so eery, and sad. They must have been so horribly bored here.

These spaces didn't have to look this bland the basic aesthetics of the place is attractive. The doorways are graceful and curving walls are very appealing. The blase' white walls must have made the place way too clinical. It's sad that the patients comfort was and sometimes still is the last they consider.

Kirkbride specified the room sizes, the single rooms were specifically designed to be too small for two people - which is what the state in its wisdom did. Rooms were designed to be 9 x 11, or 10 x 8 with 12 foot ceilings, and 6'6" x 3' windows with 10 panes and doors 6'8" x 2'8"

i'm not even going to ask how you know that. it just makes the pic even more depressing, thats why i love this site.

Wow! Another great shot Motts, and look how it's crumbling away right to the bricks.

I wonder how many layers of paint were on those walls. It looks like several.

I see about 3 layers.

I love hall shots like this. It really makes the mind think and wander about what went on there.

Loving how it gets all dark as the picture veers off to the right!

Nicely horrorific

Motts, youve really stepped your painting game.

Its to bad they wont let Ghost Hunters do a show in there.

I bet that if you were to spend the night in this place you would hear some freaky stuff.

Yeah, like a bunch of asshat ghosthunters stumbling around and peeing on their shoes and shrieking when they bump into each other in the dark. 8`-)

Did you go down into the tunnels were they sent people when they had typhoid? Or is too dangerous now?

This is a great photo, I will like to have seen this place when it was still in use, it feels so sad and lonely just to imagine people inside of those little rooms.

Liz, you are very correct, sad and lonely it was. Lomg stretched out halls full of rooms like this. When I was a child this place was home to more then 2000 residents. Half of them should not have been there in the first place. DSH, Hogan and the surounding buildings bacame home to those abandoned by relatives and an unwanting socioty.

Cold and clinical...

I just found this website and can't stop looking at these pictures. I worked at Danvers State Hospital in 1967. I also lived in Middleton and could see the "Castle" from my house. These pictures bring me back in time. I can rmember walking the huge hallways and the solariums. I can hear the large steel doors slamming behind me as I walk from one ward to another. I remember the weight of the keys that were tied around my waist. These pictures are amazing, but to see this building in this state also saddens me. Thanks for the great pictures!

I'm so glad that society is somewhat more accepting now....this seems so dated....We all have our insanities....but we're not placed in a world like Danvers.

just seeing these old buildings in such a condition makes me wonder....

Motts, I beg you tell us what you feel when you are inside one of these wonderful places.

Once the State shut off the heat, the paint started to peel like this. Back in the day, the Painters at the hospital took pride in their work; they were painting all the time, the place looked great from top to bottom. These peeling paint pics disgust me because I know how CLEAN the place was before it was let go into this dump. I'm sure the painters are pissed too, if they are still alive and know what it has turned into.

Kathie I had a big set of keys too. It was wierd, we'd use the E key to get into the wards. It was such a simple key, but the unfortunate patients didnt' have the skills to duplicate them. Remember the elevators that went from the bottom tunnel, to the 3rd floor? We would deliver the food trucks to the wards. When we got back into the elevator some of the patients would want to come, to escape with us, I was always sorry for them. Remember the 58 and the 96 key? I still have mine someplace, when I quit to start college I just went home, and noticed my keys on my belt. I remember they never allowed cameras but now I wish I smuggled mine in to get pictures of the friends I met, I mean the patients. We were always good to them brought them cigarettes and candy, made them smile.

those bastards are going to hell for tearing down the J ward and all the other building including taking off the spire and the Bonner building!

drBob, I currently work in a Psych Center and I have to agree with you about how neat and clean the wards are. If the walls aren't being painted the floors are being waxed (much like a 'normal' hospital)

I remember this place. It was scary, and painful to be there and it took a long time to get well there. Thought I would never get out or well. When I landed there I thought "I've never seen a place like this ever anywhere". I am reminiscing as I peer through these true to life pictures.

Being in there gave me the chance to really see what these people went through. No question that something of the paranormal lurked the halls.

My mother, Peggy (Pierce) Savory did a year of her nursing residency at Danvers State. I believe the year would have been around 1964 or 1965. She too remembers the ring of keys... and "those damn creepy tunnels that ran under everything".

Bonus factoid - My mother's grandparents (the MacDonals) owned the farm that existed where the Tara Hotel and Golf course now are (until the property was taken by the State during the "widening" of Rt 95). My mother's parents lived on and worked the farm, which is where my mother and her siblings all grew-up.

And yes, they could see the spires of Danvers State from the farm nearly every day, looming over them from the higher hills.

ReedSavory, cool info, that is so neat that you had family that actually worked at danvers, did your mother ever talk about how it looked inside, was it as beutiful inside as out?

Great site! Here's some interesting facts. I basically "grew up" at this hospital. Lived in nearby peabody with most relative residing in danvers. My dad was in an out of there for alcohol treatment in the mid to late 60's. I was a baby and my mom would bring a little picnic and we would visit ( i don't recall too much as i was about 2). my dadi passed in 1972 and again I was there visiting my older brother who was confined there off an on for schizofrenia and manic depression. Now being older, around 7 - 11 yrs. old, i remember eery and disturbing images of that place, that still haunt me today. My mom would lock me in the car to run in my brother some cigarettes or something and the weird patients coming up to the vehicle banging on the window..........i could go on an on. I'm 40 now and this place will haunt me forever. I later met someone whose mom worked there full-time for years during the early to late 60's as a nurse and this girl too pretty much grew up there having to accompany her mother to work at times.

Reminds me of a scene from House on Haunted Hill (the remake). Anyone agree?

It seems so sad...the photographer caught the emotions well...I'm not going to lie, i'm kind of scared just by looking at all of these pictures...

I'ts awful to think that people had to go here. Imagine being there.... not just looking at a picture of it.

Hospital or prison block?

When the place was consrtucted, it was considered state of the art. This was the place for humane care. As hellish as it seems to have been, consider what it had been like prior to Dorothea Dix's crusading efforts. I wish a lot of people could see the really old pictures of the place. There are 2 books around As The Century Turned Danvers 1890 to 1910 and Danvers 1850 to 1899. Both with Richard Trask as author, or contributing author. They have some marvelous photos of the new Kirkbride building and the grounds. The gardens were truly amazing. As much of a craphole Danvers State became after it was abandoned, It's a testament to how well it was constructed in the first place. Once upon a day all the crap you seeing as decay and rot was brand new and a not bad place to be.

This shot makes me think about the hours... some sat in their rooms staring at the walls... and fumbling with things eccentricly... I would give my right arm to sleep there for a night.

there was a movie filmed here on location, called Session 9, i remember watching the movie and thinking "i know that room, and that ward, and i have been kept in that room before! it was a long long time ago but i remember it!" it breaks my heart to see it in this shape!

i saw that! i remember it too! thats where we met too, dont you remember stephanie? it was about 1978, i was 12 and you were 10 if i remember correctly,

yes, it was wasnt it! it was indeed a good time to have a friend

I am 46 years old now, and when i was about 15 I remember my father telling me a story how our old neighbor had a breakdown and he had somehow ended up in Danver I wish i knew more about it.Your pictures are amazing by the way

The metal doors were on the more active wards. They used to be seclusion rooms. It came down to there were 2 seclusion rooms, on each floor. The rest became rooms for the patients, who could be trusted with the modicum of privacy the rooms afforded.

Ok I just found this site a week ago and I need to comment on something that was posted late last year.

I'm gonna assume the *Lynne* roll here =)

Ghosthunters are actually quite professional in what they do. Yes they believe in paranormal occurances, however when they investigate a site, they do it with the intention of "debunking" so-called hauntings instead of blindly validating them. They are their own toughest critics and in no way are they "asshat" nor do they pee on anything they're not supposed to. Just because they believe in something that has yet to be proven, does not mean they are charlatans or fools.

Sorry for the rant but everyone else here is so passionate about respecting the staff and patients and not assuming that these places are lairs of torture, so now I can speak up for something that I'm passionate about.

No disrespect intended and I think everyone here is just wonderful...especially Lynne with her pillows! =)

Well spoken, Florida Jen! I admit I am one of the bad ones who generalizes about people who look for afterlife stuff. In fact there are people who seriously want to explore what they think might be indications of an afterlife and this is a different group from those who either want to use the afterlife stuff as a springboard for the old Boy Scout hold-the-flashlight-under-your-face- and-tell-stupid-ghost-stories-and-scream- like-Nancy-Kerrigan-while-getting-your-friends-to- pee-their-pants or the ones who are "certifiably unusual" and are, quite frankly, a little beyond the pale themselves already. I am a skeptic because it seems like after multiple decades in the business I ought to have seen SOMETHING by now that's unusual. Well, something unusual other than myself, that is. But if people are looking critically at evidence I applaud them and am sincerely interested in their efforts. Anything done empirically is fabulous. In my humble and unsolicited opinion. :-)

Thanks Lynne =)
Don't worry, you're not the only one who generalizes around here. I must admit that before I found this site and started reading these extremely thought-provoking comments, I probably would have been more likely to believe all the rumors about mental health institutions, considering they're mostly what you hear about. You rarely hear about any of the good things that happen. Although I now believe that the good outweighs the bad a million times over, and it's thanks to people like you Lynne, and everyone else out there that contributes their time, patience, smiles and tears to people who really need them.

Oh and by the way I've never seen anything in the way of ghosts either! Maybe we're just deaf and blind to anything that's out there. =) I just know that until I get some proof one way or the other, I'm definitely willing to believe in the possibility of paranormal activity.

Sorry for the long posts Motts! I absolutely love your pictures. You are a talented and compassionate artist.

P.S. Make a book!

I'm a little embarassed to say, I used to believe all those rumours too. But reading all the comments here and on the forum has definitely changed my mind. I've learned so much! And lately I've been considering art therapy as a career. :)

That's great, Navi!

Florida Jen, I think that's why some of us in the field get a little cranky sometimes - while it is certainly true that there were (and still are) places where horrible things happened, it usually wasn't the norm, or if it was, it was due to the fact that there was no money, few staff (always overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated - and I'm talking direct care staff here, not people like me), no support, and a public that didn't want to know about what happened until the events became exciting newspaper scandals (and died away a month or two later to be replaced by other "exciting" news).

But I am also unhappy because the stories present a bizarre side to the people who lived at these places and makes them all either deranged dangerous psychotic murderers or else innocent trapped souls who were scooped off the street for no reason. In fact there HAVE been deranged dangerous psychotic murderers at these places and there HAVE been some people who were scooped off the street for no reason. That's just a fact. But they were always the minority. It's more exciting to hear about murderers, innocent & wrongly labeled people, suicides, and abusive staff. If I thought anyone would read a book about how boring these places were most of the time I could write one in a week - it would be just what I used to read/write in the charts for year after year for some people - "No problems today - all was well. Ate, went to programs, came home, had dinner, watched TV or went out to an activity, went to sleep." This would be punctuated by "Suzie hit Freda in the mouth - we separated them - Freda was fine - Suzie calmed down in her room" or some other such "interesting" tidbit.

There's a lot of hard work in assisting people with intellectual disabilities to learn specific skills they need to get by, there's a lot of hard work in assisting people with physical rehabilitation to learn skills or regain function, there's a lot of hard work in assisting people in coping with psychiatric illness, but most of it is the same boring day after day routine. Sure it gets exciting some days when people are having problems and need extra support, but it's not more exciting than what people who work with straight medical problems deal with - in fact, it's less so because our work is with people who generally have long-term, chronic issues where medical hospital issues are usually acute.

My personal belief is that the lure of stories of on-going abuse, terror, and entrapment are a sort of "ghost story" for some people who don't want to look provincial by believing in ghosts - it's easier to believe in the cruelty of your fellow human being (and there's plenty more evidence of it). There's a thin line between wanting to get involved to get rid of abuse and wanting to get involved because you get a secret thrill out of thinking that this is happening - a sort of voyeurism that always makes me decidedly uncomfortable. Some people who are excited by stories of abuse and neglect seem to get a sick cheap thrill out of it. Anyone who is obsessed by it and talks about it ad nauseam but doesn't try to do something about it falls into my "voyeur" category. THOSE are the people who make ME nervous - they don't have the intellectual honesty to admit they enjoy peeping at others' pain and they can be superior to others by pointing out that THEY don't injure others. My personal experience has been that once you get someone like that in the system and they find out how hard the work is and what you have to put up with on a day by day basis from people who are truly unable to control their problem behavior, these advocates for reform have sometimes ended becoming perpetrators themselves or having absolutely NO tolerance for unusual behavior. Funny old world, isn't it?

Lynne, two words:


You rock!

=)

its prison!

Darice, did you COMPLETELY miss Lynne's post above yours??? Geez!

Now, now... not ever has the ability to read... let's play nice.

i just watched sessions 9 and seeing these pictures and listening to all the people here that worked or visited the place gives me an scary but exciting way these pictures are coming across.

It's a shame that such an interesting and once spectacular building has to go to waste like that. It had the potential to be so much more than a mental hospital, and now look what it's come to...

holly, with all do respect the fact that it was a metal health facility is not where it failed to live up to its potential . the ever genuis governer billy weld decided that our tax money needed to be spent on other things like 35 year chrismas decorations in towns like wellsley im obvisily being sarcastic . we all know how well our fine public officials handle money.

i should somewhat rethink my last post on this picture . i cannot blame any particular politition, i suppose its by and large another by product of a failed or flawed system.

Society has traditionally always tried to find scapegoats for its problems. here is where they stayed

im not sure if most of the people who have stayed here were societys scape goats , who to blame may be a matter of opinion, under funding , lack of public outcry, i dont have the answers, thats up to the people who get paid to make the decision.

This is a very creep place in deed. I live maybe a 4 minuet drive from here... Tis a shame I never gathered enough courage to enter before they started ripping it down

this was an amazing structure, and avalon took it away

i worked at danvers state hospital for two years. i have some amazing stories and wonderful memories of the patients. i gained many insights as to why many of them were there. i am grateful i had the opportunity as a recent grad from high school to work there with some of my friends. it took a unique personality to work there and really be with the patients. maybe some day i will write about my experiences. it is a shame that it was given up instead of helped. for many it was home.

ty for the pictures , it makes me very sad to know that our state would sell a place of history . It makes me wonder what selectman is on the payroill for avalon oaks

i got achance 2 sneek on2 the grounds 2yrs ago i remember seeing this lady walking down from the hosp with a dead look in her face no expressions what so ever .anyway when i got up there i was amazed at how beutiful the hosp was but i also felt a strong precence there i got cought by security and he escorted me out and believe me i was kind of happy because my friend wanted 2 stay but i just didnt feel rite i was scared now i wish i never got caught.im gonna c if i can get up there again this week.

I take care of a woman who is 96 years told and her husband used to be a Dr. there in the 60's/70's. She has some interesting things to tell of the place. These pics are fantastic. I wish I had the chance to see the place.

i got a chance 2 get up there this week its all apt the part of the hosp that was saved is gutted out and r apt but the outside is the hosp u can pull up outfront and take pic i cant understand y anyone would want 2 destroy a beutiful place its really sad.

No USA TODAY in front of the doors?

That crumbling paint makes that place look so homely.Lol

Screw this "save the buildings" crap.
Screw this "psychology has evolved" crap.
Many of you don't know what it is to be locked away. I have been locked away many times. There are STILL bars on the windows, there is still a padded "quiet room."
To be fair , I have met staff that were kind and meant well; but this is outweighed by the number of people who work in these establishments as a way to have power over others. Manipulative people. Abusive people.

You think psychiatry has improved so much since the 1960's? Now that doctors have decided that Mental Illness has a biological basis, they prescribe medicines like candy. Medicines, that they have only the vaguest idea of what it does. I have wasted my life trying these medications, getting sick with side effects, being locked away, treated like a child, with no improvement . I have met many, many others with the same experiences.
Society treats the mentally ill like shit. They hate us because we are on social security and disability. We are not "useful" and economically viable.
Don't romanticize Danvers State. The patients that lived there were human beings. Don't defame their lives by alluding to ghosts and ghoullies.
When looking for an example of how "respected" mentally ill individuals were at Danvers state- look to their earlier burial process. The patients were buried in unmarked graves. Not to be remembered until the 1990s.
ps: In the past I worked as a mental health worker (i was, ironically, a psych. major). I have had practical experiences as well as personal experiences.

Does this mean you turned a negative patient satisfaction survey?

Well, tired, I sympathise with you, to a lesser degree, fortunately. i have had my own experiences in places - yes, better than these, but if the buildings are not preserved, or turned into sterile condos with no sense of what went on there..... history is forgotten, and you know what they say about forgetting hostory and being doomed to repeat it. These places should be saved, many of them are archetectural masterpieces, and if horrors occured there, people should also be made aware of that sad history as well.

And tried, again, I do understand what you are saying. i feel for you, for all patients, not just the buildings. I was locked up more than once b/c I was at the end of my rope - watching my young mother die a long drawn out death from bone cance after losing her leg, losing my job, way overly self medicating myself out of my mind, getting a DUI, they called the cops b/c I said I was goign to off myself and they locked me up for 2 weeks, treated me like a moron. They made me color pictures from a coloring book with crayons, finger paint, and all sorts of juvenile shit like that. There was ONe decent guy there who took me seriously and knew I was basically having a nervous breakdown and a life of clinical depression, that i wasn't "crazy" he pretty much told me if I ever wanted out I had just better play along, take the meds (against my will and better judgement) and colour the damn pictures. The people there stunk like piss, ATE the crayons, tolds massive lie after lie like Jon Lovitz on SNL and I DID not belong there. It was SO demeaning. But that was the new, "modern" SYSTEM. It's all the SYSTEM, and if I wanted out I had to play along. It did a hell of a lot to break my shitty self esteem doen even more. I feel for you, and i can still feel for these poor old structures, they have a soul too, just think what those walls have seen.

A nurse could of got beat to death by a horrible person

Sorry, my above comment seems to of posted in error. So hopefully here is the whole comment.

I first started to poke round this site in August (07) due to my discovery of Pennhurst. I was looking for any accessable information on that school as it is I am unable to read the wealth of information at Elpeecho's site. I am blind, well and the computer screen access program I use doesn't read PDF files to well so I was trying to find anything I could...

I love this place! Some of the pictures are very hard to see, but reading all the comments provide, in most cases, enough information to get something from each pic.

I've looked through several gallerys of photos and read hundreds of comments and I'd like to make a few points, things that have come up in my mind...

1. It's rather funny, if you think about it. When these places were up and running people would not want to go there if it were the last place on earth, or if they were there a bunch of people would give their right arm to get out, as is shown in "Suffer the little Children." The reporter asked several people if they liked it there or would they go home if they could. One man said that would be his most loved wish.

Now, it would seem we have the reverse. Now that these buildings are falling away to rot and rewin you've got to have security to eject people from the buildings.


2. I don't know how exactly to put this. But, maybe the reason so many peoplego in there is because they've heard all kinds of horror stories, some totally B.S., some with a spot of truth and others that are true all the way... And with the way the buildings look now, all broke down and falling apart, they think this is how it has always been and it fules their fire as it were.

3. I'm not sure if I can get behind all this haunted house type stuff. Maybe there is something to it, maybe not. But to my way of thinking, if you go in expecting ghosts then that's what you'll get. Or think you'll get. If you go looking for tormented lost souls of people who lived or died here, then that loud thud you heard must be a ghost, surely it couldn't be... say... a light falling down from the seeling because it finally broke free due to the seeling weakening over time.

and finaly, 3. There is a gallery on here of a girls' school, not some sort of training school for handicapped girls, but something like a finishing school or something. The buildings in the pictures there look just as broke down as the pictures of the state schools. But here is something interesting... People don't say about the girls' school. "Oh those poor lost souls it must of been awful living there and so on..." They say nice building, like the lighting stuff like that.

I wonder if they'd say the same sort of stuff if they were presented with a set of photos from a state school and photos from a girls' school without being told what is what?


Yes, I can understand that the state schools, asylums were over crowded and yes, I know lots of bad things happen. It is unavoidable... When you have so many people crammed together like that and not a whole lot of staff, things are gonna get kinda bad. It's like this in some of the state schools for the blind. I myself have seen it and have friends who attended the state schools for the blind and they've seen it, hell even been on the receiving end of things. Articles have been published regarding the poor conditions of the state schools. So I know it happens.

See the may94 issue of the braille monitor on the national federation of the blind's website www . nfb . org in their braille monitor archive. Also check out the article called "Flaorida school for the deaf and blind not a safe place for children" also located in the archives of the braille monitor. That article tells about the scolding death of a 9 year old girl, Jennifer Driggers...




Sorry, have totally lost my thoughts, my 14 month old daughter just crawled in here and into the laundry basket. LOL but I think I've made the points I set out to make...

I . . . I . . . I think I love you! :-)

if u like to read bout danver state den read project 17. its a teen book, but its hott. man dat place is freeky.

i wish danvers was not torn down i wanted to explore this soo much im only 10 but o well iwill bie a condo their to see if the grounds

i always feel really sad when i see the rooms, my heart goes out to all who lived there.

If only those walls could talk...what would they say?

Auntesther, I can totally relate. By and large I've found psych hospitals to be cold, sterile, lifeless places where patients are essentially infantilized. It's not treatment, it's babysitting. If you play nice and do what you're told, you get out. Like you said, there are kind, caring individuals there who genuinely want to help people, but in my experience most seem to be going through the motions. Ironically, the most positive interactions I've had were with the low-paid mental health techs. Unlike many of the other staff members (particularly the nurses), they treated me less like a case number and more like a human being.

No one cares about people in asylums. I live in Central Europe and my grandmother has been locked up twice for attempted suicide. I was only allowed to visit once, but it was awful. You get people who are really ill (like they "go" in their underwear and so) and people who are violent and people who suffer from severe depression all in one room, the psychs bring alcohol to the alcoholics' ward and when they bring new patiens, they have lie in the hall in institutional robes (here it means all back naked and sometimes private parts too). I cannot understand why that is happening. I mean, yes, they are "crazy" but they are human too and they deserve to be treated like human beings.
BTW the photos are beautiful.

Wow. I'm shell shocked from reading all these comments. Very interesting. Motts photographs illicit a lot of emotions from different people depending on their life experiences and perceptions of these institutions. And that's one thing that makes Opacity a great website. We are allowed to freely comment on these magnificent images. I've learned a lot from Lynne.

Wow, again. This one , comparitively uninteresting photo drew a lot of awesome comments! Everybody must have been holding it in for awhile. This is a great and compelling website. I find it interesting more for the lost architechture than the "horror stories". I do not find the other types of buildings less scary or thought provoking. Horrible nasty things can happen anywhere. How about the industrial accitdents at some of the huge blast furnaces and breweries. Motts goes where he goes and there are a lot of old, abandoned mental hospitals because of political actions.

I want to give testimony to the incredible kindness and caring of three nursing aids I knew. Nursing aids are the lowest of on the totem pole with the exception of the patients. It was a horrible and rigid hospital with ridiculous and purposeless rules. Every morning we would be roused from bed to eat breakfast. I was so, so lonely and isolated and in so much pain. Nobody liked me least of all myself. Every morning they would go out of there way to give me a special hello. It might sound stupid, but it was so meaningful. It was really embarrassing but this really silly grin would break out on my face. I couldn't help it. It was so meaningful to have such kind people greet me and care for me. They were also hilarious. They were given job duties that were ridiculousness by the head nurse. One day they were assigned posts down the hallway and in the day room and they were to make sure we didn't do anything we were supposed to do. In other words, they were made into guards. They rebelled. They pretended they had walkie talkies to communicate with each other and were make jokes and cracking everyone up. I think the head nurse eliminated those posts after a day. She couldn't enforce it. Those three nursing aids are an example of people in positions where they could dump on the only ones lower than them, and they choose the rise above it and smile. Thank you! I really mean it.

They sure don't make them like them like this anymore. I'm glad someone got in there to get some great pics.