Kirkbride Buildings - Historic Insane Asylum Architecture

Here’s a short piece about the tunnels under the former Traverse City State Hospital’s Building 50: The Tunnels Underneath Building 50. It’s from a segment called Jack’s Journal by reporter Jack O’Mally of Michigan’s 9&10 News. It’s only mildly interesting if you’re at all knowledgeable about Kirkbride tunnels, but if you’re not or you want to hear developer Ray Minervini’s thoughts on the tunnels and what might be done with them, check it out.

Hidden Columbia, a local news segment on ABC’s Columbia, SC affiliate, recently put together a report on the history of South Carolina State Hospital. It’s a reasonably in-depth look at the hospital’s story with a few surprising details among the typical, to-be-expected facts. You can view all five currently released parts online by following the links below. I’m not sure if there are more parts coming in the future, but I’ll add the links here if they do.

Hidden Columbia

1. The State Carolina State Hospital Part 1
2. The State Carolina State Hospital Part 2
3. The State Carolina State Hospital Part 3
4. The State Carolina State Hospital Part 4
5. The State Carolina State Hospital Part 5

Watching these, I’m especially struck by how much the history of these hospitals all followed the same trajectory: a founding with much fanfare and optimism, early success giving way to hard times and overcrowding, then reform and a long slow decline terminated by closure or radical down-sizing.

A few days ago, psychiatrist Dr. William J. Resch emailed me about this film featuring Columbus State Hospital. “City of the Sick” is a documentary about CSH (and to some extent all psychiatric hositals) narrated by a fictional hospital attendant. Judging by the film’s look and feel, it was produced some time in the late 1940s or early 1950s. In spite of its quaint mid-20th century style, it’s worth watching for the footage of the Kirkbride building and the insights regarding life inside the hospital. I’m sure the latter were at least a little whitewashed, but I wouldn’t fault the film’s producers for that since part of their purpose was to minimize the stigma attached to mental illness and state hospitals.

Dr. Resch received a copy of the film when he spent part of his Ohio State University residency working at Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare in Columbus (CSH’s replacement and sister hospital to the former Twin Valley psychiatric center in Dayton). He just recently put this digitized version online. The second half can be seen here: City of the Sick - Part II.

For Halloween this year, “Ghost Adventures” will be at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum on October 30th for a SEVEN HOUR live broadcast. The show will be aired on The Travel Channel from 8PM to 3AM. I haven’t seen much of “Ghost Adventures”, but the few times I did I got a chuckle out of it. In my opinion, they go way over the top whereas a show like “Ghost Hunters” seems to try to maintain some degree of dignity. Regardless of that, the show will provide hours of footage from the former hospital and should be worth tuning in to for that alone. If you’re into the paranormal, you’ll love it even more. And if you also like spiky-haired guys with huge biceps, you’ll be in Heaven!

A little over a month ago I wrote about a promo for the television series House and how it contained footage of the Greystone Kirkbride’s interior. However, more than one person told me that there was no sign of the show filming inside the interior. I can now confirm they were correct since Fox released a video about building sets for the interior of their fictional Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital. You can watch the video at www.snakesonastick.com. Better check it out soon because the video will probably be replaced eventually.

It’s amazing how much detail and work went into the show’s effort to reproduce the look of Greystone. I still don’t understand why they didn’t just use the hospital itself. Seems like they could have spiffed up a few areas for a lot less work than it took to build these sets.

House fan (and occasional KB.com blog reader) Deborah was kind enough to notify us that the above promo for House’s upcoming sixth season is now available on YouTube. The promo has plenty of Greystone Kirkbride shots and a healthy serving of interior views too — something I hope will be a regular feature of Season 6. Stay tuned…

Here’s some really fascinating footage of the Oregon State Hospital J-Building being torn down. I don’t advocate smoking pot, but I think sparking up a J may be the only way you’re going to get through all 38 minutes and 57 seconds of this video. So why am I including it here? I feel bad about not posting more often and this seems like a fast and easy way to make it look like I’m still providing value for your money. Plus it gives me a chance to engage in some clever word play (J-Building… sparking up a J… get it?) (more…)

In case you missed it, the first shots of the Greystone Kirkbride appeared on the House season five finale: Both Sides Now which aired about two weeks ago. You can now watch the episode online at Fox’s web site. Greystone makes its appearance just before the 42 minute mark. The footage is brief, but it’s a nice view and really captures the building’s imposing bulk. I was a little surprised to see that they didn’t try harder to make it look more like an active hospital, but maybe that was an artistic choice?

Fox’s hit television series “House” is currently shooting at the former Greystone Park State Hospital according to this article on NJ.com: TV Show “House” to Film at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital. It sounds like the production is trying to keep things under wraps for now, so there’s not much information other than that the hospital will “play” the fictional Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital on the show.

Unfortunately, scenes from Greystone probably won’t appear on the program until next season. Also, the area will be closed to the public while filming takes place. I won’t be surprised if a few Greystone “regulars” manage to do a little spying though:) Not that I recommend or endorse such things mind you.

Another little interesting tidbit from that article is that a movie titled Marvin’s Room was filmed at Greystone Park. I wasn’t aware of that and will have to check it out to see what kind of footage of the hospital it has.

A couple weeks ago I found a blog post at Forgotten Buffalo describing how parts of the classic baseball film The Natural were filmed at various locations in Buffalo, New York: Tour of “The Natural” Sites. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that some scenes were filmed inside the abandoned Buffalo State Hospital Kirkbride building. This past weekend I finally got to watch the movie and see for myself.

About an hour and half into the movie, Robert Redford’s character Roy Hobbs is sent to a hospital for medical reasons. The Kirkbride plays the part of the hospital (not a psychiatric facility) and does a pretty good job I might add. There’s probably around twenty minutes worth of scenes inside the building. There are no views of the building’s exterior. Unfortunately, a lot of the shots inside Redford’s room (actually a medium-to-large dormitory style space he shares with other patients) are pretty “tight” and you don’t get to see much. But there are a few shots of a ward hallway which give you a sense of what a Buffalo ward looked like in the 1930s—even though in real life there probably would’ve been beds in the hall and other signs of overcrowding by that time. (more…)