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Wow... This leaves me speechless... It's an amazing photo!

DAMN.............Also, I like the new touches to the site, good stuff.

reminds me of a zoo with all the caged doors.

Incredible!! Both solid and mesh...And, another hallway shot to boot!! Motts, you ROCK!

Reminds me of an animal shelter

You're right, Pb, it really does...

Oh Lynne, we need you! Why would they have mesh doors like this? I mean, I see some benefit to it but I have to admit it seems archaic.

Considering that this place only closed ten years ago, I would guess that this area would have to be for criminally insane inmates. I mean, mentally ill people (that were not criminals) weren't locked up like that in 1996, were they?

Imagine going from the beauty of the entrance, the Marble and all the grandeur to this.

I have solved all the mysteries of this place.

1. It once doubled as an animal shelter. This also solves the mystery of the missing mattresses. When the place closed, they let the animals run free, and they ate the leftover bedding.

So where is the leftover residue? There was still a market for used feathers in the late 90's and they was all sold on eBay.

2. It could also be they is chicken cages, as I thought I saw chicken brooders in another picture.

So now we know. This place was run by Catholic farmers who raised chickens.

I better quit while I'm ahead... (LOL)

My question is this...I don't remember seeing any other asylums with mesh doors. (am I wrong?) Would anyone know why they would use both mesh AND doors in THIS complex? Lynne?
Could the mesh be for inmates who were NOT criminally insane? I would think open mesh would make any employee open to....well....lets say "bodily fluids"....being thrown at them. Maybe it was for the much less aggressive inmates...? The rooms with the doors for the ones that were....Lynne?

**Correction..."I don't remember seeing any other asylums with mesh doors"...at this site...***

There's a lot of mesh at the place I work - in the old sections. I am going to try to blackmail Motts to come down and take some pix of my place at some point and you'll be able to see this stuff everywhere in the old sections (not in the buildings where folks currently live). However, the building I work in still has mesh like this across the windows on the upper floors. I was in working with the Chief of Nursing last night and as I looked out the window I realized that the windows of her office, which was formerly a solarium, all have mesh like this across them. We are just so used to them we forget they are there. The truth is, mesh like this is much prettier than bars and it is S-O-L-I-D, I can assure you. You couldn't ram anything through those babies.

Yes, I can understand if that shocked you, sir Motts... I mean, they were supposed to help people there, right? Not lock them up in cages?
...
This is weird, no?

I agree with anna, it looks like a place where they would lock up the tempermental bears in the zoo. It's kinda freaky to think that humans were locked in there. But as Motts put it, "If a giant 300lb dude was throwing one of those beds at me I'd appreciate those cages very much." nicely put

These remind me of the equipment cages at my college field house. Is it possible these rooms were used to store the personal property of the patients?

Tony,

Norwich Hospital built additional patient buildings during the 1950s and 1960s. As they built the new ones they just shut down the old ones. You ought to have a combination of new and old buildings there, just like we have where I currently work. If our place was shut down today, in 20 years if you went through you wouldn't know for sure which buildings were used when, so you would also see a jumble of different designs and materials.

P.S. Wire mesh was pre-Plexiglas. :-)

I agree with you, Bill. One of the older buildings in my organization (mental healthcare) has a basement full of this type of hallways. We have always used them for client storeage......as far as I know!?

Ok, I worded that wrong.....client belongings storeage it what I meant!!!!

8`-) Oh, poor Staycee! 8`-) Don't you hate re-reading your comments later and it looks like you meant something weird when you really didn't? 8`-)

Yeah..the sad part is that it seem as though the rooms here were definately for "client" storage.

Im thinking that at the time these buildings where built, they used what they thought *appropriate* at the time. It all had to start somewhere . Think about it, if you where working with patients that where deemed criminally insane, you would need some kind of protection between yourself and the clients you where taking care of. And since like Lynn said, this was the days before plexi-glass..........so its going to be mesh.............TAA DAA.....my deep thought for today........ 8-)

Amazing shot Motts! And Lynne, thanks for the info, you sure keep us well-informed. Hey maybe you and Mr. Motts should partner up for these places, he shoots 'em and you describe 'em???

man, i live in preston, and i am personally against Utopia. i heard about people going in and taking pictures, so i found yer site here, and i am amazed. cant wait to get in and take my own, who knows what will happen to it when.
thanks,
-kevin-

ARE THERE ANY "HAUNTINGS" BEING HEARD OF IN NSH?

Ronnie,

At the very bottom of the page is a place where you can click "Contact the Admin" for the answer to questions like that or to write directly.

Nifty pics

If these rooms were to store the 'patients' that were extremely violent, why is there not a slot to slide food into? How did they feed them? If opening the doors subjected the Staff to injury. Unless these were a kind of Solitary Confinement?

At the hospital I was committed to, I was sitting on once of the many plain couches when a commotion started, and one of the new patients had a psychotic moment and she took her fists and banged the nurses' station that separated the men from the female sections and shattered glass everywhere, and it is told that the glass was supposed to be safety-glass. Then they decided they may have to place wire mesh protection around the glass of the nurses' station. I did scare me bad, because I just knew she (the one who was having a psychotic break was going to come after the rest of us patients. So, I feel these wire meshes not only keeps patients confined, but for added protection. What if glass shards had hit one of the nurses in the eye, that would have been so bad. I just wanted to share my thoughts, sorry if no sound well.

wow.....kind of reminded me of when you go to an animal kennel or shelter or somthing like that. Very creepy

When I was at UConn back in the day, a couple of my dorm friends were pysch majors. They actually visited the State Hopital a few times for clinical research . They worked with sex offenders that were held there, so this may be the building? or not?

I had an relative who was a nursing supervisor at norwich for 30 years years.

Salmon was for the criminally insane. Every window on the outside has cast iron bars in front of them. This building was used until 1972, when patients were transferred to Whiting Forensic at Connecticut Valley Hospital (which is still open today). Like most, it was just emptied after the patients moved and left in the same condition it is today.

She said heavy, four-inch thick oak doors were in this building. One time, she was walking past a room and heard a "zzzzzzip" go past her. One of the patients had made a makeshift shooter and fired some kind of metal that went through the door!

nice photo i say. those screen doors, were those locked?

why did this place shut down?

There is a very prominent rumor that when the place was shut down, the patients were released and left to wander the streets of norwich.

As a child in the 1960's I remember my poor mother going in and out of Norwich State Hospital. My mother had a thick Brazilian accent as well as mental illness and emotional instability. She always told us horror stories of receiving electro shock therapy as well as being put in a bathtub filled with ice. Any pictures of the hospital reminds me only of her deep suffering there. Because us kids were so young we were only able to wave at our mother up in a window. How sad. I don't believe she received very much compassion there.

Can you just hear someone tapping the metal with their cup? Someone singing "Swing Low Sweet Chariot"?

I was thinking maybe these rooms were used for patients with severe behavioral prblems or escape risks

yes, in fact this is the criminally insane building. One of the "newer ones" built in the 30s.
I got a few pictures from the inside of this building in 2001. In one shot, the plaster was falling down so badly, it looked like snow drifts piled around the edges of the room.
In one, a bathtub is about half-full of the stuff.

These are all quite arresting and beautiful--if that word could be used to describe a place like this.

This building was actually built in 1904. It is one of the original buildings, along with the Administration building and Awl, which is a carbon copy of this one to the right of Administration. Awl was for females, although there were no bars on the windows like there were here.

Its a picture that makes you think. and think of how things where and that somethings have changed.....but some have not.

makes u really wounder what happen in here i wounder how the doctors and nurse's i don't know y im getting goose bumps looking at this picture

Shock just sheer Shock

Did anybody happen to catch that Celebrity Paranormal show? I watched it once and it was an episode about "Mad Ray" who was in the Warson Asylum for the criminally insane and he haunted it and stuff. I looked it up online and it was really called the Norwich State Hospital. So it makes me wonder if the Mad Ray and the other stories they told where true. I can't find anything online about it :( Which is how I ended up here.. researching the Norwich State Hospital. Your pictures are beautiful by the way :)

My family and i have lived in this part of ct for as long as i can remeber and i found out recently in my studies through my family and others i have over 4 relitives that were in ther for sevral different reasons its sounds cool but when i was there tonight i felt so heavy in my chest and felt like i was followed with eyes every were i turned i felt no control over my body scary a little but i was not threatend because they say in my family we stick together no matter what so to all my relitives in there R.I.P. i love you all and i hope i can contact you when i go back.

ZOMG, I'd so live there..........and if anyone dared to step in and snoop around, I'd dress up like Michael Jackson, and scare the shit outta them, 'cause

thanks motts for the comments- the mesh protects ALL - unfortunetly people don't understand that a mentally ill patient does not have to be a criminal to be violent- work on a ward- the nicest client (whatever illness) when upset can be 10 times stonger then normal-
I have witnessed a "women" knock down the hosp. sec. , 2 state troopers, the er staff and doc out of her way when they told her she couldn't smoke a cig. ( knowing that she was going to take off)

Reminds me of the dog kennels at a Humane Society building kinda scarey since this place held the mentally ill

Shocked and repulsed!

my brother was a patient there
I was very litlte when I went to visit him and this brings back some memories that I have forgotten and it reminds me of why my mother had him removed

I grew up in the next town and actually lived up the street from the hospital for nine years. The place was shut down in the 70s when civil liberties groups filed lawsuits across the country. Instead of just warehousing the mentally ill, they were supposed to receive outpatioent services and live normal lives. So the hospitals emptied out. It didn't work out as planned and many of the former patients became the homeless. They wandered Norwich and every other city and town across the USA. I know a woman who was at Norwich Hospital for killing her husband. The hospital was used for those found to be "innocent by reason of insanity" but not considered a violent risk. Connecticut had a different institution for that. The hospital is really prime real estate that is just left to rot. Unfortunately, electrotherapy and ice baths were not torture; they were actually considered helpful therapy at the time. Just like in another age they might have drilled holes in their heads to let the demons out.

The architecture is beautiful but it really is a sad place.

Dan r u makin stuff up to get some online attention?..sorry..i hate when everyone pretends to be an expert..i by no means am but a simple search of the Connecticut state library online will reveal Dan has some holes in his expertise..i dunno y this sorta thing pisses me off..i think its just because there are enough people online pretending to know something for some attention and running their mouths about stuff they don't really know about thus adding to the ignorance of everyone..sorry for gettin pissed off..but it happened

And this is when the beauty stops. =) How comon with asylums, always put the beauty in front but in back is the true uglyness... Well as it is for the Asylum in my town =)

What parts of Dan's (the first Dan) comments are not true? At the risk of "pretending to be an expert," I feel the need to clarify an earlier comment I made elsewhere on this site. I mentioned three incidents of violence involving people with mental illness. I don't want anyone to think that violence is common, or that most mentally ill people are violent. We ALL have the potential to become violent . The episodes I mentioned were noteworthy because of their rarity, not because they were typical. Those few events happened in the course of 25 years of work, and contact with hundreds of patients. Most days had no violence, and most of the "violence" that did occur was very minor and very brief, and involved no real danger.

If I'm not mistaken, some criminals were brought here, though what kinds of criminals they were, I'm not sure of. My Father was a police officer in a surrounding town from the late 70's until the turn of the century, and he told me he had to escort several prisoners here throughout the years he worked as a police officer, when the hospital was still open.

Yes this definately was for the criminally insane. I worked at the hospital for over 25 years until it shut down. This was one tough building to work in.

It looks like a zoo.

i love the doors they are more than awsome to look at love the photo

Yeah, Norwich State Hospital used to have a criminally insane unit. My grandfather worked there ages ago.

criminally insane patients WERE kept in some buildings of this campus, where in particular, i don't know.

were u gettin these photos from the great

This building was not for the criminally insane. In the 1950's alcoholics were kept "incarcerated" there for 90 days to "dry out." I know because I visited someone in 1954 and the conditions were worse than you could imagine.

According to my research and the tv program Ghost Hunters they did have a criminally insane (now days called forensic) ward. Still It would seem like somebody throwing themselves against the mesh doors could hurt themselves but maybe they were so doped up with all sorts of anti-psycotic medication it didn't really matter. A friend of mine and a former fellow patient at _______________hospital was given haldol and from what I understand it pretty much knocked you out on your tush. This shot has a very Silence of the Lambs look to it but then a lot of the buildings do. We do have an abandoned state hospital where I live and I have seen the outside from across the street but have never taken digital photographs. I need to get some photos but the area is kind of sketchy and plus most of the complex is up for sale which in my opinion sucks especially if it gets turned into condos or something stupid like a CVS or a fricking Wallgreens. The hopspital is considered an eyesore but it is important and should be put on the historical buildings list. But enough about that. Great photos from Mister Motts. Thanks for letting me vent a little.

If any of you have the chance and like to look at creepy places like this there is another in waterford, CT. On shore road (I think its called old shore road now) the place is called seaside regional center. Its odd the beaten path on shore road. There is a nursing home on the corner of the small road you take to get to the property. It does have security however. If you want to walk the grounds you still may be able to. However don't let them catch you taking pictures. And they will follow you so don't think about going into one of the buildings. The hospital was used for children with mental disabilities from the early 1900s till the 40s or 50s when it turned into a Turburuollis hospital (sry horrible speller), then later a nursing home. I've been on the property many of times and never heard or felt anything. Having security I respected the property and did not break in. Check it out if you can find it and can still get on property

Amazing shot. I can only imagine severly distressed patients clinging to the mesh doors as staff walk past checking on them.

The hospital was closed completely in the 90s. This was the building for the criminally insane. The hospital was closed due to the decline in patients and the increase in better treatments in more conventional settings. The remaining patients were transferred to other facilities in the state.
I have been a resident of this state all my life, 36 years, I know people that worked there and therefore can state this is true. Dan (1) "facts" made me gringe.
I also know several people that have been in there and had more than their fair share of paranormal experiences.
I myself have never ventured in due to I do not believe in tresspassing.
The site is now under consideration to be purchased by one of three offers. The EPA is going building to building deciding which to renovate and which to demolish, several have already been taken down and 2 of the larger ones are to be gone by the end of the year. As of now, the only one I know of that will remain, so far, is the administration buildings.
It is sad the state let these building go to waste..they turned off the heat, but never the water, so year after year, the pipes froze and thawed and caused over 6 million gallons of water to flow and destroy the property.
If i had the means i myself would buy several of teh building for perservation.

Far out! What an incredible shot. I would love to explore this hallway :)