Danvers State Hospital
Information Arkham Asylum Arkham Judge Hathorne Salem Witch Trial Judge John Hathorne owned the property at the time of the Salem Witch Trials. John is also the Great Grandfather of author The horror film Session 9 was set here and actually filmed on location. Lobotomy! LobotomyClosed and Mostly Gone The hospital was built in 1878 and was shut down in 1992. It has been abandoned and closed off from the public since then. In 2006 most of the property was torn down to make way for apartments.Looming over Danvers Massachusetts is one of the most exquisite mental institutions ever built; The Danvers State Insane Asylum.
Construction began in 1874, and the 70,000 square foot Kirkbride building was opened four years later. It's Gothic peaks and spires looming over the solid red brick are an incredible sight of beauty and a symbol of grandeur and fortitude, but at the cost of over $1 million to build, local residents resented the beautiful castle on the hill being given to the "insane" while they were living meagerly. Danvers was a model for humane treatment at the time, with no restraint policies invoked and the hospital instituted a pathology laboratory that was held in very high regard in the medical field.
Aerial photo of the complex on Hawthorne Hill (Photography by Pictometry)
The hospital soon filled with such varied types of patients that it soon became a problem; geriatrics, the mentally disabled, alcoholics, drug addicts, the criminally insane and all other people with varied degrees of mental illness were mixing together under one roof. By the 1950's Danvers
State was reported to be just as bad as Byberry, using various shock therapies, lobotomies, and other methods to keep the overcrowded hospital under control. The original Kirkbride building had a recommended maximum capacity of 600 patients, and although some additions had been constructed, the hospital housed around 2,400 patients at one point! Upon the steady decline of patients that most nearby psychiatric facilities were experiencing, the Kirkbride building was abandoned in the early 1970's; the remaining patients were moved to the Bonner Medical Building across the lawn. Danvers State Hospital officially closed it's doors in the summer of 1992 in response to the many allegations of overcrowding, abuse and neglect in court. The movie "Session 9" was filmed on location in 2001, and brought a lot of attention to the old hospital. Security has since been increased to 24 hour patrols, and the boarding of all windows. A fire was started inside in 2004, forcing firemen to enter the dangerous building to prevent the whole Kirkbride from being engulfed in flames. Since then, the place has been on total lockdown - constant patrols 24/7 with mandatory checkpoints, and the arrest of anyone caught anywhere on the grounds (they are publishing the arrests in newspapers to get their point across). states that over 120 people have been arrested since 2000
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