July 17th, 2008
The Fergus Falls State Hospital Kirkbride building may become the setting for a movie. According to the Fergus Falls Daily Journal, Twin Cities filmmaker Dav Kaufman is working on a new film and has the RTC specifically in mind as its location: Filmmaker Has RTC in Sight.
Session 9
July 16th, 2008
As explained a while back in this post, it’s my goal to post pages with pictures and history of each demolished Kirkbride building that I never got a chance to visit. I’ve recently posted a few more, including Spring Grove State Hospital (Maryland), Fulton State Hospital (Missouri), Jacksonville State Hospital (Illinois), Kalamazoo State Hospital (Michigan), Winnebago State Hospital (you guessed it: Wisconsin), and Pontiac State Hospital (Michigan).
Some of the less boring facts gleaned during my research involve the asylums in Jacksonville and Fulton. At Jacksonville, in 1860 a lady named Elizabeth Packard was involuntarily committed for three years. Her husband sent her to the asylum after she began disagreeing with his religious beliefs. On her release, she separated from her husband, formed the Anti-Insane Asylum Society, and successfully petitioned the Illinois legislature to grant wives the right to a public hearing if their husbands tried to have them committed. She also wrote a few books about her asylum experience (one of which can be read online here). (more…)
July 13th, 2008
In yet another example of people distancing themselves from asylum history, the new park in Morris County (made up of 300 acres from the former grounds of Greystone Park State Hospital) will be named Central Park. This fresh and exciting new name was deliberately chosen to avoid stigma related to the hospital’s past. As NewJersey.com reports:
By a 6-1 tally, the freeholders broke from the tract’s history and voted to name the new venue Central Park of Morris County. (more…)
July 8th, 2008
LiveJournal user laurapalmer813 posted some photos of the Kirkbride building in Dayton, Ohio today. (This is the Kirkbride that’s been turned into a retirement home.) If you’re interested, check out the photos. The building looks pretty good, maybe a little boring since it’s lost some ornamentation, but still pretty good. Looks like it’ll be around for a good long while.
July 7th, 2008
Asylum enthusiast Taylor/WSH posted about this on the forum: Joe Jordan, current owner of the Weston State Hospital Kirkbride has received funds from the state to repair the building’s clocktower. West Virginia’s Historic Preservation Office has granted $104,000 for repairs. Mr Jordan will match the grant with another $104,000 plus work from staff and volunteers. Work is expected to begin around the first of September. (more…)
July 7th, 2008
It’s amazing: the same wonderful technology that allows me to basically publish a book internationally for pennies a day also allows me to accidentally delete seven years of work in ten seconds flat. Last night I accidentally deleted several hundred files from this web site and spent a few frantic hours re-uploading as much as I could. Luckily I’m pretty good about doing back ups so I didn’t lose anything except for one new page I was working on. I’ve got most everything back online now, but thanks to a DSL line that’s been going down regularly for the past week or so* (and which I will throttle to death as soon as this post is published), there are a few pictures and some small custom touches missing from the blog. I’ll have those back soon, but hopefully no one will even notice.
If you do see anything wrong with the site though, please let me know. I’d very much appreciate it.
* Tip to DSL users: if you move into an old house and need a technician to check your phone lines more than twice because you’re DSL keeps going down, do yourself a favor and get cable internet access ASAP.
July 1st, 2008
I just heard this from a friend: on June 3rd, Nor-East Architectural Antiques burned to the ground. Nor’East was the company that won salvage rights to Danvers State Hospital as well as to the Northampton, Foxboro, and Metropolitan state hospitals.
Not only have we lost most of the buildings, but now all these artifacts are gone as well. I don’t know all the details, but there must have been many beautiful pieces of asylum history that burnt in the flames. Hopefully a good number of items salvaged from the hospitals were sold well before this tragedy though. (more…)
June 28th, 2008
No, I’m not talking about ghosts, it’s some Avalon Danvers residents who are apparently unhappy. I was looking around for news items about Danvers State Hospital, and came across some reviews of Avalon Danvers from current residents of the complex. Complaints range from noise and traffic problems, unresponsive management, unseemly neighbors, and “corners cut on construction”. I’m sure all you Avalon haters will enjoy reading these: (more…)
June 27th, 2008
Today’s Salem News has an article about last night’s grand opening ceremony at Avalon Danvers: Officials Celebrate Rebirth of Danvers State Property. Even with all the congratulations about what they did preserve, I still don’t believe Avalon cared one bit about preserving anything at Danvers State Hospital. They only did what they had to do to get their hands on the property and cram as many multi-level crap shacks as they could fit on top of Hathorne Hill.
I have to agree with Richard Trask. The Avalon Danvers development was “an historical rape of an important structure, not just to Danvers but to the United States.”
June 26th, 2008
Former Northampton State Hospital preservation advocate Mark Roessler writes about the renaming of Hospital Hill in this Valley Advocate article: What’s in a Name?
It’s a pretty good, lengthy article that ranges from before the Northampton asylum was built to the present day, with the Kirkbride only a memory. One thing I have to comment on in particular is this statement at the head of the article: (more…)
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