# The looney bin



## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)

Here are a few shots from some abandoned asylums here in MA.























































more here: http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d64/newenglandexploration/


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## Saltwater Servitude (Mar 18, 2006)

Interesting pics. You have to wonder what type of tortured minds were confined to those wards.

What does the handwriting on the wall say? All I can make out is Worcester State Hospital there at the end.


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## birdnester (May 21, 2004)

That building looks familiar (not a confession)......is it in Northampton behind Smith College?...i used to live in Easthampton under Mt. Tom


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## Pod (Dec 11, 2004)

Those look like something straight out of a horror movie!


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## RustyBrown (May 29, 2004)

*Neat series...*

I like the perspective you chose in the first shot. Reminds me of the shot of the "Psycho" house. Bet that building could tell some stories. I really don't want to bring ths up, but what are all those floaters in the upper left quadrant of the chair photo?


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## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)

Yes, NSH is behind Smith college. In fact, we usually park near the tennis courts and walk up the hill. Unfortunately, it's been slated for demo so it's getting locked up tighter. That just means we'll have to be a little more sneaky. 

The barber chair is in the basement of WSH. The spots are probably the asbestos dust that was going into my lungs (i'm getting a respirator before i go back again). As for the writing, we couldn't decipher it even though we were right there. Every window is boarded up so it is about as black as you can get. You cannot see your hand an inch in front of your face. I need to go back to get exteriors there. I'm just a little wary after we were inadvertently pinned down by a guard in the freezing drizzle for three hours.

here are some exteriors of WSH (not mine).


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## Cap10 (Mar 3, 2005)

I bet that would be a playland if you were a ghost hunter. Alot of those pictures have what I think ghost hunters call orbs in them. They are white spots that show up on film and are believed to be spirits. 

Just relaying what I saw on a tv show.


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## RustyBrown (May 29, 2004)

*Ohhhhh*



Cap10 said:


> I bet that would be a playland if you were a ghost hunter. Alot of those pictures have what I think ghost hunters call orbs in them. They are white spots that show up on film and are believed to be spirits.
> 
> Just relaying what I saw on a tv show.


You had to go there...


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## Cap10 (Mar 3, 2005)

yup!


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## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)

Here's some recent ones. The camera I was using was pretty crappy and our time inside was limited, I need to go back with a better camera and a tripod.














































For some more info on the site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belchertown_State_School

Brad


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## StevePage (Aug 1, 2006)

just in time for halloween  A friend of mine forwarded me this in an email, it is pictures of all types of abandoned asylums and powerplants and the like, some are pretty scary click here


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## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)

StevePage said:


> just in time for halloween  A friend of mine forwarded me this in an email, it is pictures of all types of abandoned asylums and powerplants and the like, some are pretty scary click here


That guy is from up here, I haven't explored with him yet, but I'd like to. He runs a good site.

Brad


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## Koru (Sep 25, 2006)

Well, this all freaked me out for sure... particularly those chairs. *shudder* I have such a vivid imagination! 

Thanks for the fright! 


edited to add: i've just seen the piano with some of the keys depressed... whoa, i don't know how you had the courage to walk through the place!


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## robalo 2120 (Sep 23, 2006)

thats creepy


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## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)




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## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)

Hydrotherapy tubs:


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## wickedinhere (Oct 4, 2004)

Those pics are freakin me out but i just cant stop looking at them.


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## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)

*some new ones*





































Brad


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## mastercylinder60 (Dec 18, 2005)

there were probably a few lobotomies done in there in days gone by.


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## activescrape (Jan 8, 2006)

I'ld rather have a bottle in fronta me that a frontal labotomy.
Scary pics.


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## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)

I'll give someone a greenie if they can guess what's laying there in front of the chair (pee-ew).


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## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)




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## robalo 2120 (Sep 23, 2006)

looks like a dead racoon


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## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)

robalo 2120 said:


> looks like a dead racoon


close, it has whiskers and a tail and paws


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## robalo 2120 (Sep 23, 2006)

dog? cat?


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## Calmday (Jul 7, 2005)

Big dead Rat or opossum?


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## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)

robalo 2120 said:


> dog? cat?


A cat it is! Meow?


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## robalo 2120 (Sep 23, 2006)

here, kitty kitty kitty


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## robalo 2120 (Sep 23, 2006)

great pictures they really scare the hell out of me


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## krissy (Jul 28, 2005)

That kitty looks like the one that crawled into the engine compartment of our Yukon a while back...


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## Mrs Backlasher (Dec 19, 2004)

Good photography... but I've gotta tell ya...

that was DEPRESSING!


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## Walkin' Jack (May 20, 2004)

It WAS depressing...and scary....VERY scary. I have a vivid imagination and I would have been better off if I'd seen those pics in the middle of the day instead of on my way in to turn in for the night.

I can almost hear the voices of the likes of Vincent Price and the screams of the insane minds that must have ben confined there. the hopelessness live by the tortured souls of the mad inhabitants.....That first pic is, in several ways, the most terrifying. It seems to make no secret of what goes on within it's walls.

I'm taking it that that one pic of a chair with a headrest and a next to a sink was NOT a barber's chair....Most gruesome!!

So now I must go lay down and try to conjure up images of beautiful sunrises on the beach, and hope to get to sleep before the screaming-meemies take over!


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## Saltwater Servitude (Mar 18, 2006)

I just finished going through that site that has the Metro State Hospital Photos. The picture of the door with the mesh wire is just, well it just is a little perturbing. Someone commented on that site that you knew there was someone behind that mesh, just inches away staring back at you. How high can the hair on your neck stand up in a place like that? 

Those would be some really interesting places to do an art photo series I have in mind. Actually, the Metro one would be perfect. Now how do I convince a model to go in there at night with only candle light during the shoot? Heck, how do I convince myself to go in there? 

A fly could pass gas at 20m away and I'd probably be in the next county if I were in one of those places.


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## MsAddicted (Jan 25, 2005)

What I find absolutely amazing is how they were left almost as they were. There is so much equipment around and whatnot that its like one of those ghost ship stories.

I worked with a few chronically mentally ill people several years back who were now in their 60s and 70s. Many of them lived in the state hospitals until they closed (this was in michigan but equally creepy). The few stories they told me were chilling.


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## jabx1962 (Nov 9, 2004)

I worked at Austin State Hospital from 1982-1984...


The "Clients" in these places belong there.


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## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)

Saltwater Servitude said:


> I just finished going through that site that has the Metro State Hospital Photos. The picture of the door with the mesh wire is just, well it just is a little perturbing. Someone commented on that site that you knew there was someone behind that mesh, just inches away staring back at you. How high can the hair on your neck stand up in a place like that?
> 
> Those would be some really interesting places to do an art photo series I have in mind. Actually, the Metro one would be perfect. Now how do I convince a model to go in there at night with only candle light during the shoot? Heck, how do I convince myself to go in there?
> 
> A fly could pass gas at 20m away and I'd probably be in the next county if I were in one of those places.


Unfortunately Met State is being demo'd right now and not much is left. That and Danvers (the king of kirkbride asylums) I never got to see unfortunately. The good news is, if you do a little research you'll find that these places are everywhere. Lots of them are even on currently active Dept. of Mental Health campuses, like the one in my gallery labeled "the bw".

Brad


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## MsAddicted (Jan 25, 2005)

jabx1962 said:


> I worked at Austin State Hospital from 1982-1984...
> 
> The "Clients" in these places belong there.


Thats too general of a statement Jeff. Nowadays the system has weeded the ones in state hospitals down to the worst of the worst. But back in the 50's and 60's (when these buildings were at their heyday) your statement would absolutely have not been true. I know people who were in the state hospitals for years for nothing more than the fact that they had seizures.


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## BPitcher (Aug 23, 2004)

Here is a quote left by someone about Worcester State Hospital: 

"Just wanted to add a couple of notes from my youth. As a child in a local public school, I went with my class to put on an operetta for the inmates at the Worcester State Hospital. It was not considered polite to call it anything else. We toured a tiny bit and were constantly assured that this was a hospital and meant to be a nice place. I was impressed by all the locked doors, grilles, and other cage-like structures. Still, we saw it as a hospital. We did see some clearly disturbed people during our performance, but you know, the show must go on. Later, as a young adult, I visited an acquaintance with some friends. This would be the late 1970's, and we visited where people voluntarily checked themselves in for drug addiction, bad trips, etc. Frankly didn't look or seem much different than many college campuses at that time, including some of the more disturbed denizens."

On the other hand, I also read something about a resident of WSH who was turkish. They said, no one ever bothered to ask him if he was crazy, because no one spoke turkish. Instances like that were what brought about the overcrowding and downfall of Mental healthcare in the Northeast.


Brad


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## jabx1962 (Nov 9, 2004)

MsAddicted said:


> Thats too general of a statement Jeff. Nowadays the system has weeded the ones in state hospitals down to the worst of the worst. But back in the 50's and 60's (when these buildings were at their heyday) your statement would absolutely have not been true. I know people who were in the state hospitals for years for nothing more than the fact that they had seizures.


The ones in the Nut House I worked at weren't there for seizures.

I watched an 80 lb. woman with about 100cc of Thorazine in her kick in a 3' wide steel door in a "Timeout" room. Yep, padded walls and all.

The term "Headbanger" does not come from people who enjoy heavy metal music.

It's from people who would bang thier heads on the floor, walls, anything...Thier forehead's looked like Herman Munster because the Scar tissue was so thick.

Can anyone guess why we had to padlock all the Dumpster's?

It was a very interesting place to work.


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