Kirkbride Buildings - Historic Insane Asylum Architecture

A few days ago, squad546 on the Asylum Projects forum told me that Independence State Hospital is now represented in Google’s Street View. I soon after went looking for other Kirkbride buildings to see if there were any other new additions since I last checked. Below are the ones I found that you can see clearly. (more…)

Is November really over? I barely noticed it go by I’ve been so busy. But it’s my least favorite month and I’m jonesing for it to be 2010 anyway, so who cares? Oh yeah: the Richardson Center snowglobes are now available for purchase. You can currently see what they look like on the Avalon Scarves home page, and buy them online from their snowglobes page. I have to say, I like my virtual BSH snowglobe better, but I suppose I’m biased.

Last week someone on the forum posted a link to a Time Magazine Story which mentioned Traverse City State Hospital. It gave me the idea to check for more stories concerning state hospitals from Time’s extensive 86 year archive. While there weren’t any amazing finds, there were a few interesting items…

Medicine in a Mad House (1934) - Tells the story of how a patient filled Danvers State Hospital’s kitchen sugar cans with cockroach poison, killing another patient and making 13 others seriously ill.

Government Inspiration (1936) - This story about government sponsored art during the New Deal starts off with a description of a mural painted at Elgin State Hospital. I just thought it was interesting that the artists were instructed to “use only the softest shades of primary colors, to ‘avoid all exciting combinations.’”

Unhappy Anniversary (1952) - The sad story of Miss X, Topeka State Hospital’s oldest resident in 1952. She had been admitted to the hospital in 1882.

Reinforcement Therapy: Short Cut to Sanity? (1969) - Experiments in something called “Reinforcement Therapy” at Anna State Hospital in Illinois.

August has proven to be a pretty quiet month for Kirkbride buildings news. Hopefully those of you in the northern hemishpere are too busy getting in some summer fun to notice. So I’m taking this opportunity to quietly (but still shamelessly) announce that I’m going to try selling prints of my Kirkbride photos from the site. You can view the available photographs on the new prints page.

Prints are available in 8×10 and 11×14 sizes. I may make even larger prints available in the future. If there’s actually any interest in this, I’ll be adding more photos to choose from as time goes on. And if you’d like a particular photo on the site as a print and it isn’t yet listed on the prints page, please feel free to ask if I can make a print of it for you. I’ve chosen what I think are among the stronger pictures I’ve taken, but it’s always good to hear what people are really interested in.

Phil Thomas, the gentleman who brought us City on the Hill, has created a new site dedicated to another Pennsylvania asylum: Danville State Hospital. The site includes a history of the hospital, some pointers on how to get patient information and, best of all, lots of pictures—both historical and contemporary. Though the latter are great, my favorites are the old photos of the Kirkbride. I don’t think I knew that the original admin section was considerably different than it is today. It’s probably just me, but doesn’t the old admin make the building look more like an old fashioned grand hotel than an asylum?

StoryCorps — the nonprofit project to honor and celebrate lives through listening — just posted a story about the memories of one Marcia Page: A Special Childhood Friend. Marcia spent part of her childhood on the grounds of the Fergus Falls State Hospital. Her father was the chief clinical psychologist there during part of the 1950s. While the piece is unfortunately brief, it does offer a warm glimpse of what life could be like for a hospital employee’s child. Read the Story

Since the forum receives so little traffic, I thought it might be a good idea to point out a recent series of posts by someone who spent several years at Traverse City State Hospital. Ronl, became a resident of the hospital in 1965 when he was 12 years old, and his memories (both good and bad) make for fascinating reading.

You can find them here: Forgotten Children - Hall 18, Hall 17.

I finally got around to adding a page for the Kirkbride building in Washington, DC: Saint Elizabeths Hospital. I was fortunate enough to get on the DC Preservation League’s tour of the West Campus this past December. Unfortunately, the sun was low on the horizon and behind the building. So the exterior pictures of the Kirkbride’s facade are a bit dark and flat. Oh well. The League may be putting together tours of the campus again this Spring. If I’m lucky I’ll get another chance to take pictures when there’s more light on the front of the building, and more greenery around too.

Even though the Saint Elizabeths Kirkbride isn’t on my list of favorites (I’d even go as far as saying it’s on the ugly side), the hospital campus itself is really beautiful. The view of Washington, DC alone is fantastic. But the variety of trees which fill out the grounds are also attractive and cast some amazing shadows. Then there’s the sense of history you feel when walking around all those old historic buildings on the outskirts of the nation’s capital.

If tours are given again this Spring, I really recommend signing up. There may not be many more chances to see this Kirkbride after the Department of Homeland Security starts transforming the West Campus into its new headquarters. Most likely, you won’t get to see the inside of the Kirkbride on the tour, but walking around the campus is interesting enough and won’t cost you anything either. If I hear anything about the tours, I’ll mention it here. So stay tuned.

Over the last few months I’ve actually started using my Facebook profile and have to admit it’s pretty addictive. In case you’ve been living under a rock in a cave somewhere on Mars, Facebook is a social networking site that allows you to keep in touch and up-to-date with friends, family and other associates, as well as with your favorite bands, TV channels, companies, whatever.

It’s nice to see that Kirkbride buildings have a small presence on the site. There’s the Kirkbride buildings page, the Project Kirkbride group, an unofficial Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum group, and a really nice profile for The Village at Grand Traverse Commons (formerly Traverse City State Hospital) where you can find out about upcoming events and see some pictures of the goings-on there. If you’ve got your own Facebook profile, please become fans or join these groups to show your support.

I hope there’ll be more Kirkbride-related stuff on Facebook in the future. Seems like the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum should have an official profile/page, as well as The Richardson Olmsted Complex and Hudson Heritage Park.

There’s a new web site concerning the fate of Greystone Park at www.preservegreystone.org. It’s owned by the group dedicated to preserving the Greystone Park site for recreation, open space and historic preservation, instead of residential and commercial development. If you’re looking for information on what’s currently happening with the Greystone Park campus, preservegreystone.org will keep you up to date. (more…)