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Northampton State Hospital | | | A Farewell Visit? |  |
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Northampton State Hospital | | | A Farewell Visit? | |
those vivid colors are unreal. Your photography makes even a morgue look amazing.
This site is awesome.
We use to live in the big white house at the top of the hill. Near that pink pavillion thingie.
If anyone has an info about NSH, you can email me at tanya484@lycos.com. I was very disappointed when I heard it would be torn down. The last patients were let out in 1993. How could it be in such bad condition after being closed for only 12 years? It would have been wonderful to restore it and make a museum out of it.
Amen. :-(
Everyone who thinks this is so "sexy" should spend time assisting here as well. How is anyone brave who goes into an abandoned morgue? It's easy to be somewhere when there's no actual bodies around. I know because I work in the same building with our morgue (in the basement of the building my office is in) and I walk past it most days (and nights) to get to the hospital next door, even when we have had power failures. Even a morgue with someone in it is not particularly "scary." Now, go into a functioning morgue while procedures are underway and see what is really done - THAT is what takes bravery.
Some people get a cheap thrill out of other peoples' misery. There is a difference between having a fascination with death that is put into constructive uses and being a gawker who profits emotionally off of others' misfortune.
You want a thrill - go out and take some food and a blanket to a homeless person who is so psychotic they don't understand they are freezing or starving to death. That will get your adrenalin rushing but it also might do something for someone instead of allowing you to wet your pants in your own self-projected fear and then bravely take the scary story back to your "admiring" friends, most of whom are too smart to get a thrill that way. And you know, the next time one of them loses a close family member, they will look at you differently because of the way you disrespected the people who have died by making light of their deaths like this.
I have as much of a gallows humor as anyone. However, the fact that people in the MR/DD population are now living past the age of 30 is a huge change in the last several decades, and it is due to the incredible care these folks have received as well as the improvements in equipment and medicine (and funding, obviously). The folks I work with are becoming geriatric now. That is exciting to me, because these folks never used to live this long. At the same time, the group of people who still remain in ICF-MR facilities are those with the most medical challenges, and time is catching up with a lot of them. Every time one of them dies, I lose a little part of myself. I admit I have a hard time when people make jokes about morgues in institutions because many of the people who have died in these places were friends of mine. To go into here and make light of the place, to tag it, to steal parts of it, to take pix of people lying on the slabs thinking they are so brave - yeah, I know it's people just trying to make light of mortality. It's still the place that used to hold the last remains of someone's sister, someone's daughter, or someone's brother. And if that person was related to you, the bravery aspect would disappear and other emotions would take its place.
I love these pictures and I am glad they are here because they tell a fascinating story that needs to be told. They would tell a much better story about all of us if they didn't include people being such (dare I use the word?) asshats to equate walking through an abandoned morgue with a statement of their personal bravery and worth.
thanks ,, Anna
However, that does not mean all of us with this 'gift' can't appreciate building like this any less (or more for that matter) than anyone else here. We don't all go to get doped up and/or drunk and spraypaint the walls. We visit these places just like anyone else, to see the beauty that once was-in the walls and fixtures, in what man has made.
Then again, I'm also the type that will stay the farthest away from tarot cards or ouija boards as well.
Now, let me just clear some things up for those who don't seem as interested as I over researching the hospital.
1) It was not shut down because of structural damage. They just tell you that because who's going to believe the real reason? The reason they shut it down was because "supposively" the head of the place was "murdered." He definitely died, but no one knows how. But know the structural damage story is a crock of shit. However, the inside is still falling apart. Stairways are collapsing along with cielings and floors. And more than that, if you mangage to get part the Morgue, make sure you're wearing really good shoes because unless you want tetnus...there are rusty scalpels and scissors and other such sharp things on the floor.
As to the part about taking it down, I drove by there the other day with my boyfriend and asked him what the huge building was because I had never really payed any attention to it. He says to me that it's the hospital. So if they are tearing it down, they haven't succeeded in taking it all down yet. Also, I was looking at the site 1856.org or whatever it is, and other sites dedicated to keeping it open, and I believe you can get petition papers if you're determined enough. I don't think it's to keep the whole Hospital, but at least the Main Building.
Furthermore, asbestos things HAVE been found in NSH so please be careful should you choose to go.
Now, the other day I was having a discussion with one of my best friends and we were talking about how they want to build condos and housing units on that land. I do believe that has to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Why would anyone in their right mind, build housing units on the burial grounds of a place where there was unjust murders and torture and suicide?
I want to tell you about the scariest thing that has ever happened that I was close to about that Hospital. A couple years ago, my boyfriend was the sweetest guy in the world. No lie. He was a little crazy and obnoxious but he's a guy. So him and 3 friends decide they're gonna go to NSH. They were there for 4 hours. They lost one of their friends. Finally the cops and state troopers came in after them and they left without their friend. A couple weeks later, in the paper there was an article talking about how the kid they left there was now in a mental institution. Not to long after that, my boyfriend would have these moments where he would black out and become someone totally different and try to kill himself. Finally they put him in a mental institution. He nearly managed to kill himself there too, but was stopped the doctors who had come by to see him. Finally it went away and he's okay now, but he's never quite been the same. One of my friends also told me that just being in there long enough will make people want to kill themselves. It's a scary thing.
Although I have every intention of at least going once, I don't recommend going.
now for me its a different story, i have grown up around death and morgues...my aunt is a trauma nurse and my dad is still a mortition.....i have seen some very interesting and some very horrific things concerning death.....i dont drool over death..... i embrace it and set out to learn everything about it...... which is why i am following in my fathers footsteps.....
thank you lynne for making that valid point evident!
~mary~
Goth is a sub-culture that very few actually understand. In reality it has very little (if even anything) to do with death and blood and all that mumbo but that's what all the wannabes think and the wannabes are those who let themselves get known by the world, so to speak. Therefor - the world in general has the wrong idea of what a goth really is, because frankly - 90% of "goths" aren't really goths at all.
Being a "real" goth has to do with how you look at life and death (which is far from the *popular* themes) and how your mind works.
I say "Goth" and you (not pointed to anyone in particular, just as in general) think black clothes, dyed hair death-metal music blasting...
Sure, many goths do choose to present themselves this way, but as the *real* culture states - you are free to do whatever you wish, no bars held.
Ok, so maybe wearing pink and yellow pigtails, listening to Britney Spears classifies you as un-goth as you can possibly be - heh, think again - if the overall mentality is there (accepting, respecting and daring to live) this individual can fall within the lines of being a goth.
Goth is, as just said - a state of mind! All the people running around talking about death with their *How sweet the pain is killing my tortured spirit*-rant don't even know what it's about, let alone are they *real* goths.
And this I DO direct to those who have spoken on the subject here - Lashing out at this individual to begin with and then continuing to state how naïve and "stupid" ALL goths are is just as uninformed as the original poster's perspective.
You may look at me any way you wish and think what you like, but this needed to be stated. I've read the comments on how tired you in the business of caring for others are of being misjudged and "assumed" to be tyrants just havin' a laugh with the poor people that need help. Believe you me - goths are just as tired of being thought to be nothing but lazy, death-obsessed vampire-wannabes!
I do not dislike Goths. Someone made a comment under mine that was incorrect and added my name to it. I am especially insulted that an ugly sexual slur was attached to it. I will say, though that if your definition of a Goth as "accepting, respecting and daring to live" doesn't fit people who choose to work in a very difficult field taking care of people when others are critical of them for doing it, I don't know what does. And it takes a lot more courage to do that than to wear different clothes and listen to different music and to "dare" to think different thoughts. A large number of people who frequent this forum would describe themselves as Goths, so there is no bias about that here. What there is bias about is the silly people who come here pretending to be Goths, as you said. Maybe rather than jumping the people who may not know the difference between a true Goth and a Goth-wannabe you could do what many of the rest of us try to do - try to educate people about the differences between public perception and reality.
The Gothic Age
As the third year that followed the year on thousand grew near, there
was to be seen over almost all the earth, but especially in Italy and in Gaul, a
great renewal of church buildings; each Christian community was driven by a
spirit of rivalry to have a more glorious church than the others. It was as if
the world had shaken itself, and casting off its old garments, had dressed
itself again in every part in a white robe of churches.
My point was that there *is* indeed this difference and *few* are aware of it. I let my less articulate side state it, and that was a mistake on my part.
The History that Sage posted is the "real" I was reffering to, that's how it all began. Sadly it's little known and the more common music/poetry-version is what's usually found these days.
And among these are, *of course*, "real ones"! It's just this "death=cool"-thing that pisses me off! Both the people who think it and the ones that think all those who think it are goths. The wannabes brings down the whole reputation of the original idea and a whole sub-culture gets the final branding.
And I just want to add that I myself am not a goth, nor do I try to be. Other than the fact that I do share my stompingground with them (historically) I don't have much of a connection at all.
I just don't take misguided hostility very well, which is a side I believe I have to work on as it does get the better of me from time to time.
Agreed - sounds like we are on the same page! :-)
The best resource might be to visit the Northampton State Hospital Burial Site Project
I do not believe in ghosts and or hauntings, however, I just like sacring myself silly, so I pretend there are haunts, however, how do I know what is on the other side of us in this spectual plane. Respect and awe is what it all means to me. Many people have their own opinons and ideas and perspectives. However, thinking that death is cool is not my cup of cola. I repesct it because sooner or later, we all have to face that portal when our time comes. In the mean time, I like living and visiting places...in pix only...like these of Motts here on his sites! It keeps theses places alive!!! Sorry, this is just me and my thinking!
SAD DON'T YOU PEOPLE HAVE A LIFE
Meant to be said drily, of course. ;)
its amazing how you can interest someone with a building, i stared at looked at this picture for ages and just thought "how many people were put in those" "who cleaned them out", so many questions can pop into your mind when your only looking at one picture!
keep telling me stuff about this place..its got me really interested to know :]!
note to "dead people are cool";
would you honestly think dead people are cool when your the one looking at your loved one dead...i don't think so somehow!
thanks.
btw if you know anymore sites like this will you let me know...
www.myspace.com/theoneandonlydubzey
x
to answer your question, I HAVE been there. More times than any human should have to live through. At this point in my life, the people I have known who are dead outnumber the people I have known who are still alive. Those who were cool when they were still alive are STILL cool even though they are dead. Tremble before my LOGIC!
What scared me the most were the slightly newer parts which had glass block windows high up. The kind that let light in, but you can't see through. Above the windows were ventilation hoods. I couldn't help but think that these were the operating rooms where lobotomies and worse were performed.
I had no desire, well sane desire, to enter the building. But i was fascinated with the size and scope of the place, along with the magnificent architectural styles. It really impressed me like no other place, especially after we simply stumbled upon it, while walking around the pond at Smith College, and taking a trail up the hill.
It's really sad that they are removing it. I didn't know that was occuring, though, I assumed it would happen eventually. Prime location. Plus, from what I read here, they've had to patrol it constantly.
FWIW, back when we were there, we walked around it for hours, not a soul ;) was in sight. No security, no police, no one. Broad daylight. So, apparently, the visitors to the place expanded exponentially and created the security issue. Too bad.
besides dead people or ghost of the dead people
As for the doors - the walls were pretty close to the sides of the refrigerator, so if the doors opened towards the sides there would be more room to load and unload the cadavers into the trays.
The picture kinda takes a back seat to the morbid fascinations of misguided children... kinda sad. People need to grow up. Really.
By the way, the pictures are breathtaking. I applaud the photographer. The hospital is amazing, however it is kinda creepy, as is it's history but its something to be respected at the very least.
P.S. Have fun!
www.myspace.com/brena2
or a email. musicians-friend@Hotmail.com
I absolutly love this shot, I find morgues to be so fascinating, I'm not sure why. Could you tell me, how did you start this career path (Oh dear if it is even your career I'm not so sure if it is a hobby or not.) I also am wondering, do you get into these places illegaly or do you get special permission? I would more than adore being able to visit some place like this for exploration sake.
I have gotten permission to photograph a few places, but usually there's a lot of sneaking around involved and risks to take. I think the legal system in the United States really prevents these places from being easily enjoyed.
Yes I don't think you'd much get to just walk into any of these places if you wanted to, and I very much would like too, I'm very glad you are able to enjoy your passion though, especially seeing as you have been all over the world. I hope to book a trip to the Waverly Sanitiorium up in Kentucky, if you ever get the chance you should try checking it out I've heard alot of interesting stories about it, some of them ludacris (Spelling oh my sorry.) but I have seen a few not so detailed photos of some of the hallways, rooms and the outside of the building it is a very big place and looks facinating.
plz oh plz help us by telling us what it looks like inside.
thank you,
butter and dee dee