May 19th, 2008
I’ve added a page for Cherokee State Hospital. The photos date from the same trip in 2004 when I visited Clarinda and Independence. Like the other two Kirkbrides, the building at Cherokee is in great shape and the grounds are well kept, giving a good sense of what Kirkbride hospitals must have looked like back in the early days. Cherokee was a little different though in that much more of the Kirkbride is still fully used, not to mention the fact that one wing is now occupied by a prison. A tall fence topped with razor wire surrounds the prison wing, and really detracts from the building’s otherwise pleasant appearance. (more…)
May 14th, 2008
Stepping back from the subject of Kirkbrides a little, I just wanted to announce that KirkbrideBuildings.com passed a pretty significant milestone today. As of this morning, the site had 10,276 unique visitors this month. That may be chicken feed to popular sites getting ten times that many visitors a day, but considering KB.com’s average for the past few years has been around 5000 uniques a month, it’s pretty amazing.
In March the site crossed over the 7000 unique visitors mark for the first time, and then for a second time in April. But May has seen an even bigger increase and the site will likely get over 12,000 uniques by the end of the month. (more…)
May 13th, 2008
Asylum Projects forum member squad546 may have found yet another Kirkbride, but then again maybe not. This one’s in Austin, Texas and it’s a bit of a question mark. If you look at the satellite photo below (or better yet the aerials on the AP forum) you can see what I mean.
Pictured is the original Austin State Hospital building, constructed in the mid 1850s. After finding some old images of the place online (Picture 1, Picture 2) my assumption is that the building was probably planned as a Kirkbride, but for whatever reason it either wasn’t completed or it was decided from the start that there’d only be one wing. The historical pictures show it looking pretty much the same as it does now, except maybe the shorter “wing” and front portico were added some time after initial construction. I could be wrong, but I think it’s a solid hypothesis. More research will reveal if it matches the facts. (more…)
May 9th, 2008
As promised in my last post, here’s another collection of links to old photographs of Kirkbride asylums. There aren’t as many left for me to share as I thought. I really should have just thrown these in with the last bunch, but oh well… (more…)
May 6th, 2008
Things have been a little slow in the Kirkbride newsroom lately. Aside from last week’s excitement over the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, there haven’t been many new developments in the world of Kirkbrides—just some rehashing of the same old news.
So here’s a post about more old Kirkbride photos on the web that people might not be aware of. In a previous post on the same topic, I mentioned that I couldn’t find some photos of Worcester State Hospital which I had come across earlier in the American Memory Collection. I found them again fortunately. As stated before though, the quality isn’t so hot. Maybe the originals are good (it might be worth getting copies), but the electronic versions available on the web site aren’t. That said, here are the links. (more…)
April 30th, 2008
The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum is the featured location on tonight’s episode of Ghost Hunters. The show airs at 9PM on the Sci-Fi Channel. TAPS — “not your normal paranormal” investigation team — will be shown hunting hauntings in the Kirkbride. I’ve never really watched the show, but from scanning a fan forum for 30 seconds I gather TAPS is a bit more skeptical and scientific than the average paranormal investigation unit. I don’t know if that’s saying much though:) (more…)
April 24th, 2008
The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum web site has a great new look. Check it out if you have some time to spare. It’s definitely worth a gander. The layout and graphics are very “sexy” and will certainly draw more people in to learn the Weston asylum story.
www.trans-alleghenylunaticasylum.com.
I like how the home page sort of splits the building in half to acknowledge the two big interests regarding the old hospital: History & Heritage versus Hauntings & Mystery. I’m not much for the latter, but if you are, check out the Overnight at the Asylum announcement on the Ghost Tours page.
April 22nd, 2008
Those familiar with 19th century asylums know all about the sometimes trivial or bizarre reasons people were “adjudged insane”. If you do any kind of research into asylums or the history of psychology, you invariably come across lists of weird explanations for why certain people were committed to asylums.
But I was surprised by a list on Roots Web I came across recently. The list was compiled from late 19th and early 20th century newspaper items describing people committed to the Mount Pleasant asylum in Iowa. (more…)
April 16th, 2008
The abandoned buildings at Worcester State Hospital could start coming down as soon as this week according to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Reporter Lee Hammel writes about the possible scaling back of the proposed new hospital facility, and mentions a few facts about demolition and the unclear fate of the Clocktower. (more…)
April 14th, 2008
Just a reminder to those of you in the Buffalo, NY area: there’ll be a public meeting about the Richardson Complex this Wednesday, April 16th. The meeting starts at 6PM and will take place at the Buffalo and Eerie County Historical Society, 25 Nottingham Court, in Buffalo. Findings, recommendations, updates and plans on stabilization and redevelopment will be presented.
If anyone reading this attends, please let me know of any surprising or especially good/bad news. Thanks. I’m hoping there’ll be some fantastic revelation about preservation and reuse of this historic building—it’s definitely one of my favorites. I won’t be surprised if it’s just a rehashing of things we’ve heard before though. Things usually turn out to be a lot less exciting than my hopes… *sigh*
