Arches of White

what strikes me most is how clean and bare it looks.

Motts does housekeeping on the side . . .

After "walking" the graffiti scarred halls of Byberry waiting for Motts to come back, this is a refreshing change.

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

Wow.

"perspective" "think" even....

That's okay rich, I look at photos like this and I lose all sense of reason, and get overwrought, so I usually can't type either.

Motts, does anyone know what purpose the basement served. I mean, was it a storage area, or what?

COME ON TWUG, IT'S WHERE THE WILLIES ARE.

The willies are in the basement. *Cool*. Then I must have the jitters!

The Kirkbride deisgn called for small dining rooms in each wing, and an underground 'railroad' system for moving food on carts on tracks from a central kitchen, then uploaded on dumb waiters.

I knew it had to see normal activities at one time. I guess it wasn't always creepy.

TWUG! YOU HAVE THE JITTERS TOO?!?! DO YOU HAVE MORE?? IS THERE A LIST? IF YOU HAVE THE YIPS, WE'RE GOIN' GOLFIN'

Amazingly pristine down there.

Quote pmichael" The Kirkbride deisgn called for small dining rooms in each wing, and an underground 'railroad' system for moving food on carts on tracks from a central kitchen, then uploaded on dumb waiters."
Yes, I discovered this as well today in the Dix Mont.

Putter golfing?

YEAH; I HAVE'NT HEARD IT CALLED THAT, BUT YEAH, PUTTER GOLFING. I LIKE THAT. I WILL USE IT. THANKS TWUG.

You are so very welcome.

This is the basement area i believe..... did you happen to notice the metal set of tracks in the floor, because I followed them and they led to a strong locked door which I could not get open, and I am really interested in knowing what the tracks were used to move. So if you know, please post it.

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)

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

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...

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? ;-)

yes the tracks were used for laundry carts and so forth
i worked there from 1990 to 91 summer job and after school..

the history this place has is unbelivable..i felt so sorry for these people..i remeber going up to wards to get trash or so forth and people would be crying and screaming and talking to walls and them selves..sad place...

Chris, it was a sad place yes. As a child there I remember all the screams and the voices, they hanted me for years. Jiberish mostly, words that didn't make any sence to anyone but the person that spoke them. The tears, screams and whispers burned in to my memories I'm sure until the day I die, and who knows, perhaps after that as well.

It was sad when it was open..it was sad when it closed. I lived in Salem when DSH closed. There were suddenly people literally wandering the streets with noplace to go, who should NOT have been out there. Supposedly they were going to private living arrangements and into community care, but a lot of them just landed on the streets with no idea what to do.
My mom worked at the hospital in the 50's. She has stories. And stories. One thing she told me about the basements was that patients were transported down there too. That due to the impracticality of the kirkbride design (!!!) it was impossible for a patient to leave their ward without either going outside or through another ward. Since they had, at that time, a communal dining room that most patients who were able were expected to take their meals in, whole wards full of patients had to be moved from their ward to the dining room, which was located centrally in the building. They couldnt traipse through other wards so they all headed down to the basement, which at the time were all divided with a male side and a female side. Not patients on one side and staff on the other. The staff traveled with the patients, one nurse in the front, on in the back, through the basements. From the stories I've heard, it was quite an adventure each and every time.

lMy uncul worked as a Chef in DSH and he told me about the tunnls and underground stuff. He would bring carts of food up for the people. Crazy how clean it is though

Strange its quite clean.

I just stumbled across this site. Great photos Mott. I have always been fascinated by old decrepit places. When I was a kid my dad spent a lot of time in the local regular hospital, not an asylum. But parts of it were built in the 1800's. I remember walking through basement tunnels like this to reach different parts of the hospital. It so sad that Danvers is being torn down. I live in New England and always just wanted to just drive by the place but never made it.

Motts, pmichael, Mari, Truckie, you guys are right on track. This pic is part of the tunnels which in fact did have railroad track type tracks to move the food and supplies from the kitchen and maintenance depts to the bottom of each section of the outer buildings. Then there were elevators to wards like J1, J2, I1, I1, etc that went up to floor 1, 2, and 3. You had to climb stairs to get up to the attic. The railroad tracks were cemented over but the tops could still be seen, when they bought an electric "pull" machine to move the food trucks thru the tunnels. Watch the movie "Session 9" this is where the guy digs thru the wall and finds the gold teeth and silver dollars fall thru the wall. By the way there was NOT a cremation room next to these walls as the movie shows., they just put that in to show where the silver dollars may have been in the pockets of some patients. Jackie I think I knew your uncle. I worked in the Kitchen and Housekeeping in '73 - '75 before I started college. The movie "Session 9" shows alot of views of the Kitchen. Even the original buillitin board is on the wall in the movie, where they posted our schedules each week. Int he movie, where the kid is removing the tiles from the floor, is the main dining room where we used to feed the patients that could come out of the Wards. That big overhead steel roof used to cover huge aluminum cooking pots (not shown in the movie probably stolen) and they made soup and cooked vegetables. Darklady I'm sorry you will never get to walk thru the place. I have a friend named Fred who worked there like 35 years. Even tho there was a law against cameras, he said fuck-it and for like 3 days he Video'd the whole place from top to bottom. I forget how many tapes he made but he has the whole collection. It shows everything from the basement and tunnels up to the Attics. We tried to get one of the WeatherVanes off one of the towers but was afraid to fall so never did. I wonder if Avalon will salvage those or just tear them down? Brad when you mentioned the screams it reminded me of my great-grandfather who was a carpenter there (and his father too) who used to hear screams constantly. On Sunday afternoons back in 1900 - 1920's people would take the horse and buddy and have a leisurly ride up the hill, around the hospital, then back down again. My grandmother said she never liked it because you would always hear the SCREAMS from patients day and night (before medications). Contact me at Danvers88@aol.com if anyone wants to know things. I know everything about that place. Mari maybe I can give you info for your book too. I remember the Laundry and Farm, the hill was really totally self sufficient, grew their own vegetables, milk, eggs, etc. There are other state hospitals around (I think they are closed too with de-institutionalization) that look like Danvers State Hospital, with the big towers and gothic architecture. Besides my friend Fred owning the VHS movies, my son and his friends made a movie for his High School project. They snuck in thru the Grey Gables building and then thru tunnels up to the Castle at top. Great movie showing the peeling paint, floors caved in, rotting wood, broken windows and views of Boston from some windows. I think those Condo's and apartments they are going to build will be haunted. If you're into the supernatural at all it's inevitable!! How can you disturb so many spirits and not expect they to rebel and attack the intruders; think about it !!

Lights! Lights! Where are the lights?! I would not go down this hallway by myself if you paid me!

what axactley is a labotamy is that the thing with the thin metal rod in the eye to sever that nurve like they talked about in session 9?? email me at tyler.microsoft@gmail.com

Back in the late 60's the tunnel led to the cafe as someone described. I remember a huuuuggggge cockroach along the way. Oh well, guess they had to eat too.

why are they tearing it down it makes me mad!

wheres the light coming from..your in a basement

Mel, my sweet daughter, I'd go down there with you.

Thanks for all the info, just gets more and more interesting.

Once upon a time my first wife and I made out in the steam tunnels. (acessible from these basments)

Oohh... Steamy...

Big ED,

Are you saying that your first wife is accessible from these basements, or am I misreading this? =8-o

I WENT TO THE OLD ASYLUM A FEW TIMES WHEN I WAS YOUNGER BUT DIDNT SEE THIS PART I WENT IN THE MAIN CHURCH. I SAW SOMETHING WEIRD AND HURD SOMETHING EVEN WEIRDER! SCARY

Wow. phenominal.
Eyes drawn towards the white strip in the center of the floor, made me think, *Highway to Hell* .

I WAS researching floors and doors and woodwork, etc, for my old house here, LMAO now I am again, finding a bazillion other coolest stuff instead, at 5:28 in the morning!!!
Dagnamit, And hubby wonders why I dont get any sleep.

EVERYONE IS TAKING THIS PIC. LIGHTLY, THIS IS ONE OF THE SCARIEST SPOTS, WALK DOWN THAT IN PITCH BLACK WITH YOUR LIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU AND ITS HARD TO TELL IF SOMEONE IS BEHIND ANY OF THOSE WALLS ON YOUR TWO SIDES!

I went with my friends a couple of times. We recorded some strange EVP's. One of which sounded like music playing softly in the background. You have to listen carefully, but there's almost like classical music playing for about 11 seconds. It was the strangest thing.

Dude, I went in there with my girlfriend the other night and we heard footsteps coming towards us. It was the creepiest thing, I thought it might have just been a homeless person, but we searched the entire room and there was no one there! It was nuts, the room temperature dropped like 20 degrees while we heard the footsteps and they seemed to have been within 5ft of us! We got scared and ran out of there...

if it was classical piano you heard there was a concert pianist up there as a patient for many years. He was alive when he left though.

archers of loaf, a great local band

I am usually not afraid of places and things, but mate, I have to give you props. I seen the movie Session 9 and the pictures of this place. I have to tell you, this place scares me shitless. I don't know how you did it, but if it was me, I'd run far far far away and hide under my covers like an infant.

Matt you say you went in the other night- do you by any chance have a time machine?????

Kadee, I just happen to have one in my back pocket..why do you ask?

Only because it's been demolished for quite awhile now...

Yes Matt -- they started to tear Danvers down a year ago.

Danvers? I thought this was Dever..

After all these years, the walls are so clean and untouched. It almost feels as if you were there and connected in a erie way.

what happen?

They tore the joint down. The tunnels may exist in a slightly filled in form. Tha't's according to a member of the security force I worked with for a while.

I have a haunted basement we took a picture with a ghost inside

Was there a morgue Motts?

At one time there was a morgue. It was in the Bonner building. Once they contracted the funerals out., the morgue was tuned into the snack bar. There may have been a morgue in the Kirkbride I don't know it was prior to 1948 when my dad started there. Funerals there were pretty primitive early, on plain wood box and sheets for a shroud . Kinda done on the cheap you might say

Thanks Big Ed,do you live near Danvers?

I live in Danvers, and worked at the Hospital.

The basement of the Bonner building was used as a short-term ward. I was admitted there in 1991, after my insurance ran out at another mental hospital. All sorts of people came there--often guys in shackles would be admitted. I lived in the Bonner basement for a month or two, at which point I was transferred upstairs to a ward on the first floor. The night I was admitted they weighed me and made me strip and take a shower. I let them know I'd already showered that day...they didn't give a crap. Afterwards they gave me one of those little black combs. Needless to say, I am not able to comb my hair with one of those. These people--these nurses, "mental health workers," etc., were base, awful people. They were total dirtbags--the type with tattoos all over themselves, chains hanging from their belts, etc. Real scum. They had no skills to work in the real world so they abused their power at the nuthouse.

If you arrived in 1991 you weren't in the Bonner Building basement. It was a ward, yes. It however was the Transition Unit. You were admitted to the 2nd floor, if you were admitted at all. I find your veracity lacking. If your main bitch was, they made you take a shower , they were supposed to believe you'd showered. That's rich. Everyone got one.

We just abused patients to wile away the hours until we could go home and totrure our children. We had obviously the largest collection of sadists and perverts known to man, working there. I trust you filled out the patient satisfaction survey when you were discharged, God I hope you weren't too harsh.

Big Ed - Defensive much? I meant no personal attack on you; sorry you took it that way. That's my opinion on DSH, like it or not. As far as my veracity goes, I wish I were lacking it. Yes, I was admitted to the Transition Unit in 1991 (thank you for refreshing my memory on the name). I was not admitted to the second floor. It was late 1991. I was there for Christmas. My comment about the shower was intended to be "rich," actually . The fact that they made me take a shower at around 2 a.m. is a testament to the useless craphole that that place truly was...it was no better than a prison. Respectable psychiatric hospitals that actually provide treatment and employ educated, intelligent staff do not make you take a shower in the middle of the night upon admission. I can tell by your comments and defensiveness you are really "rich" yourself.

Nobody was admitted to the transition unit. right off the street as it were. Admissions went to ironically enough the admission unit. which was 1 floor up. Respectable hospital? It was a state hospital. You were not admitted because you had options. You were at the end of the line hospitalization wise. As far as showers. Every one got them. #1 because we checked for scars, injuries and possible vermin . #2 you'd be surprised how much contraband we'd find. #3 for the protection of the other patients. You may claim you were clean, you may have lied, been full of crotch crickets. They are unbelievably contagious. We'd rather take our chances of offending your dignity. than letting critters spread. Besides scooter you are not the first person who claimed they were clean. We didn't believe the others either. That's the crux of it all we had to be concerned with the whole of the place rather than the individual. It not easy to manage 25 or so peoples human rights with out treading on someone's individual rights. we'd rather err on the side of safety for the masses. Because our main mission was to provide safe emphasis on the safe place. Besides if you main bitch was you got a late shower...

Big Ed, for God's sake, let it go. Let's get a few things straight:
1) again, I meant no personal attack on you; I would appreciate it if you would cease & desist w/your attack on me. I am sure not everyone at DSH was a bad person who abused his or her power; unfortunately I had some bad experiences there with mental health workers, nurses, & one psychiatrist who did abuse their power.
2) If you read my original posting, you would see that I was not admitted to the Transition Unit "right off the street"--I was sent there after my insurance ran out at another hospital in Lynn. As I've stated two times, I was admitted to the Transition Unit and then, after a month or so, transferred to the first floor.
3) Don't you think it's a little silly that you insist on believing I am lying? I should doubt your "veracity" because you worked there & don't even know someone could come into the Transition Unit from another hospital. I spent from late '91 to the closing of DSH in the Bonner Bldg., and then I spent another 6 months in Tewksbury before I was finally released right before Christmas '92. I have many memories from those places and from that time in my life. I came to this website not intending to have this dispute w/you but to look at photos of a place I once lived in.
3) the shower was not my "main bitch." Don't take what I said so literally. Use some common sense.

I was at Danvers in 1991 as well, just for a month...May/June. I was transferred from Bridgewater State (relax, I didn't kill anyone).
I received very fair treatment at Danvers, though some patients did not get along well with staff members.

The weirdest damn thing happened though on one of my last nights there. There were not many people staying on the first floor (I beleive it was the first floor, whatever the minimum security floor was...and I was sleeping with just one other person in a room full of beds. I had this nightmare where the ghost of a woman was trying to get into my body. She was incredibly angry and agressive...I would use the words demon, wraith, and banshee to describe her. I struggled to wake up, and when I finally did I was totally freaked out. I shared my experience with the other guy in the room...and as I told the story his face went blank and his mouth dropped open...I asked what was wrong and he said, "The exact same thing happened to me."

I had no idea so many people think that place was haunted, until I did an internet search recently...and based on my own experience there, I am inclined to beleive it.

I can be reached at srk890@aol.com if anyone has any questions or had any first hand experiences of their own at Danvers. If anyone was at Danvers during May/June 1991, I hope you are well and would love to hear from you.

Personally, Seltzer. I think Big Ed has a Valed (spl) point & Argument, You insulted him pretty heavly.
I'm on Big Ed's side of this Conflict, Even though the argument was in the past.
As for the Picture, Good show motts! LOL.

I wish I could have gone there. It is so beautiful! I just...feel like...I was one of them, you know? I feel connected to that place.

wowwwwwwww!!!!!!
thats scary and my dad road his dirt bike through there with his friends and walked to.
i can't believe he did that