Danvers State Hospital, circa 1893.

Danvers State Hospital demolition.

Danvers State Hospital demolition. The top belfry and peak of the central tower above the main entrance have been removed in this picture.

Danvers State Hospital (officially known as the "State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers")^{[citation needed]} was built in 1878 (and opened in the spring of that year) under the supervision of prominent Boston architect Nathaniel Jeremiah Bradlee, on an isolated site in rural Massachusetts. It was a multi-acre, self-contained psychiatric hospital designed and built according to the Kirkbride Plan. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1000x680, 212 KB) Danvers State Hospital, Danvers, Massachusetts, Kirkbride Complex, circa 1893. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1000x680, 212 KB) Danvers State Hospital, Danvers, Massachusetts, Kirkbride Complex, circa 1893. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (2272 × 1704 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (2272 × 1704 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File links Danvers2. ... Image File history File links Danvers2. ... 1878 (MDCCCLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Nickname: City on the Hill, Beantown, The Hub (of the Universe)1, Athens of America, The Cradle of Revolution, Puritan City, Americas Walking City Location in Massachusetts, USA Counties Suffolk County Mayor Thomas M. Menino(D) Area    - City 232. ... Danvers State Hospital, circa 1893. ... This article is about the U.S. State. ... A psychiatric hospital (also called at various places and times, mental hospital, mental ward, sanitarium or asylum) is a hospital specializing in the treatment of persons with mental illness. ... The Kirkbride Plan refers to a system of mental asylum design advocated by Philadelphia psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride in the mid-1800s. ...

History

Constructed at a cost of $1.5 million, with the estimated yearly per capita cost of patients being $3,000 the hospital originally consisted of two main center buildings, housing the administration, with four radiating wings. The administration building measured 90 by 60 feet, with a tower 130 feet in height. Connected in the rear was a building 180 by 60 feet, in which the kitchens, laundries, chapel, and dormitories for the attendants. In the rear is the boiler house of 70 feet square, with boilers of 450 horsepower, used for heating and ventilation. Water was pumped from Middleton Pond. On each side of the main building are the wings, for male and female patients respectively, connected by small square towers, with the exception of the last ones on each side, which are joined by octagonal towers. The former measured 10 feet square, and were used to separate the buildings. The original plan was designed to house 500 patients, with 100 more possible to accommodate in the attic. However, by the late 1930s and 1940s, over 2,000 patients were being housed, and overcrowding was severe. A chapel is a private church, usually small and often attached to a larger institution such as a college, a hospital, a palace, or a prison. ... A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated under pressure. ...

While the hospital was originally established to provide residential treatment and care to the mentally ill, its functions expanded to include a training program for nurses in 1889 and a pathological research laboratory in 1895. In the 1890's, Dr. Charles Page, the superintendent, declared mechanical restraint unnecessary and harmful in cases of mental illness. By the 1920s the hospital was operating school clinics to help determine mental deficiency in children. During the 1960s as a result of increased emphasis on alternative methods of treatment, deinstitutionalization, and community-based mental health care, the inpatient population started to decrease. Nurses is a television sitcom that ran on NBC from 1991 to 1994. ... Year 1889 (MDCCCLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Pathology (in ancient Greek pathos = pain/pation and logos = word) is the study of diseases. ... 1895 (MDCCCXCV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... The 1920s is a decade sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ...

Due to budget cuts within the mental health system the hospital was closed in June 1992. The area itself is completely closed and monitored closely by campus security. In December of 2005, the property was sold to Avalon Bay Development. Demolition of most of the buildings began in January of 2006, with the intent to build 497 apartments and condominiums on the 77 acre site. 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ...

By June 2006, all of the Danvers State Hospital buildings that were marked for demolition had been torn down, including all of the buildings on the lower grounds and all of the buildings on the hill except for the center-most sections of the Kirkbride buildings. Avalon Bay predicted that they would have properties available for rent/sale by Fall 2007. However, on April 7, 2007, four of the new apartment complex buildings and four of the old hospital buildings burned to the ground in a four-alarm fire visible from Boston, some seventeen miles away The fire was confined mostly to the buildings under construction on the eastern end, and the damage to the remaining Kirkbride structures was minimal. An investigation is underway concerning the cause of the fire.

Avalon Bay provided a live webcam of the construction at the old site of the hospital at their website (Avalon Bay Construction webcam). However, the last picture currently available is from 2:03 AM on the night of the fire (the structures in the picture are lit by the orange glow of the fire), and the building the camera was installed in was most likely destroyed. (The water tower and the existing condo building in the picture, however, both survived.)

Trivia

• Danvers State Hospital was almost located in Winthrop, Massachusetts under the name "Massachusetts State Hospital", however it was decided that the Danvers Location was better suited for the needs of the state.
• The land the asylum sat on once was the site of the home of John Hathorne, one of the judges in the Salem witch trials. (Danvers was known as Salem Village at the time, and it was the site of the trials.)
• The hospital was the setting for the 2001 horror film Session 9 and 1958 Home Before Dark.
• The Danvers State Insane Asylum may have been the inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham Sanitarium, which in turn was the inspiration for Arkham Asylum in the Batman comic book series. Danvers also appears in H.P. Lovecraft's short stories "Pickman's Model" , "Herbert West Reanimator" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".
• In the game Painkiller, one of the levels, called Asylum, is based on the central administration section. While the outside is a faithful reproduction, the inside is not.
• Danvers is not the only Massachusetts state mental hospital to be struck by fire. The Taunton State Hospital also caught fire on March 19, 2006, damaging many of the long-vacant buildings.

  Nickname: Winthrop-by-the-Sea Settled: 1635 â€“ Incorporated: 1852 Zip Code(s): 02152 â€“ Area Code(s): 617 / 857 Official website: http://www. ... John Hathorne (August 5, 1641 - May 10, 1717) was one of the associate magistrates in the Salem witch trials, and later, the only one not to repent of his actions. ... 1876 illustration of the courtroom; the central figure is usually identified as Mary Walcott The Salem witch trials, which began in 1692 (also known as the Salem witch hunt and the Salem witchcraft episode), resulted in a number of convictions and executions for witchcraft in both Salem Village and Salem... 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Session 9 is a 2001 psychological thriller/horror film directed by Brad Anderson. ... Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of fantasy, horror and science fiction, noted for combining these three genres within single narratives. ... Arkham is a fictional city in Massachusetts, part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft and is featured in many of his stories, as well as those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers. ... Arkham Asylum as it appeared on Batman: The Animated Series. ... Batman (originally referred to as the Bat-Man and still referred to at times as the Batman) is a DC Comics fictional superhero who first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939. ... Painkiller is a first-person shooter PC game released on April 12, 2004. ... The Taunton State Hospital (officially known as the State Lunatic Hospital at Taunton) is a psychiatric hospital built in 1851 within Taunton, Massachusetts, USA. It facilitated the mentally and violently ill. ...

See also

• Mental health
• Psychiatric hospital

Mental states redirects here. ... A psychiatric hospital (also called at various places and times, mental hospital, mental ward, sanitarium or asylum) is a hospital specializing in the treatment of persons with mental illness. ...

References

• Tracy, Cyrus M. (1878) History of Essex County, Mass.
• The American Historical Society Inc. (1935) The Story of Essex County
• "Four-alarm fire ravages former state mental hospital," Boston Globe, 7 April 2007.
• Citro, Joseph A. Weird New England: Your Travel Guide to New England's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2005, pp. 240-243.

External links

• Danvers State Insane Asylum — information, news and preservation efforts
• opacity.us — Photo documentary of the abandoned institution

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