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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ------------------------------------------------------------------ Danvers State Hospital Commonwealth of Massachusetts Geography Location Danvers, Massachusetts, United States Coordinates 42°34′52″N 70°58′28″W Organization Type Specialist Services Speciality Psychiatric
History Constructed 1874 Opened 1878 Closed 1992 Demolished 2006
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Danvers State Hospital, c. 1893 Danvers State Hospital is located in MassachusettsDanvers State Hospital Location Danvers, Massachusetts, United States Built 1874 Architect Nathaniel Jeremiah Bradlee Architectural style Neo-Gothic NRHP reference No. 84002436 Added to NRHP January 26, 1984
The Danvers State Hospital, also known as the State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers, The Danvers Lunatic Asylum, and The Danvers State Insane Asylum, was a psychiatric hospital located in Danvers, Massachusetts. It was built in 1874 and opened in 1878, 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.
The hospital was closed permanently in 1992. Despite the building's being included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, most of it was demolished in 2007.
History The Danvers State Hospital was officially opened in 1878 after four years of construction. Nathaniel Jeremiah Bradlee served as the designing architect.
At a cost of $1.5 million at the time, the hospital originally consisted of two main center buildings, housing the administration, with four radiating wings on each side of the Administration Block. The kitchen, laundry, chapel, and dormitories for the attendants were in a connecting building in the rear. Middleton Pond supplied the hospital its water. On each side of the main building were the wings, for male and female patients respectively. The outermost wards were reserved for the most hostile patients.
Over the years, newer buildings were constructed around the original Kirkbride, and alterations were made to the Kirkbride itself, such as a new gymnasium/auditorium on the area of the old kitchens and multiple solaria added onto the front of the wards.
Most of the buildings on campus were connected by a labyrinth of tunnels. Many of the Commonwealth institutions for the developmentally delayed and the mentally ill at the time were designed with tunnel systems, to be self-sufficient in wintertime. There was a tunnel that ran from a steam/power generating plant (which still exists to provide service to the Hogan Regional Center) located at the bottom of the hill running up to the hospital, along with tunnels that connected the male and female nurses homes, the "Gray Gables", Bonner Medical Building, machine shops, pump house, and a few others.
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