dave
Paul A. Dever State School
Originally built in 1942 as a military facility and POW detention center, this complex of buildings was converted into a mental health facility. Countless identical buildings, interconnected by tunnels, are now abandoned.
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Cranberry Specialty Hospital
Cranberry Specialty Hospital was opened as a Tuberculosis sanatorium. The unusual architecture (for the North East) was lauded at the time, as were its facilities and state of the art heating system. Shots are on Neoppan 1600. There are also some experiments with in-camera double exposures in this set.
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Baker Mills
The Baker and Forbes mills were constructed in 1891 and 1911, respectively. They provided employment for many people in the Dorchester area producing Baker’s Chocolate for many years. The brand was acquired by General Foods and in 1962 the company decided to consolidate their operations and move production to Delaware. Employees were given the option…
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Grafton State Hospital – Trips 1 and 2
Grafton State Hospital opened in 1901 and closed in 1973 after growing to encompass a huge campus. The building which remains abandoned definitely shows evidence of its age and attempts to retrofit more modern systems to it over the years. Most of these shots are on Fuji Pro 160s, and were my first experiment with…
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Norwich State Hospital
Norwich was a popular place. Lots of explorers loved this place and always seemed to pull great pictures out of it, no matter how many times they went. I did not love this place. It was scuzzy and empty and I just could never get really great shots. It seemed like every time I went,…
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Belchertown State School
I have explored many mental health institutions in my travels, but Belchertown is one of a very few which truly gave me the creeps. It is the only place I can claim to have ever encountered anything which seemed even remotely supernatural (though it is a stretch to even say what I encountered here was…
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Northampton State Hospital and Memorial Complex – Trips 7 and 8
Another predawn run to NoHo but, as the demolition was progressing, I spent more time photographing the Memorial Complex across the street. The last two images are from a June 29, 2008 trip to the Memorial Complex
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Medfield State Hospital
Medfield State Hospital is a pleasant cottage style asylum. Its buildings are modern enough to consider productive re-use, so hopefully the place can be saved. It housed an active parole board facility until recently.
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Northampton State Hospital – Trip 6
By the time April 2006 rolled around, it was clear that demolition of the hospital was imminent. There were rumors about state troopers hanging around the hospital busting people, so I decided I would conduct a pre-dawn raid. As it turned out, there wasn’t a soul around and it was an incredibly peaceful trip. One…
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