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All the United States Massachusetts Danvers Danvers State Hospital
Danvers State Hospital is permanently closed.

This entry remains in the Atlas as a record of its history, but it is no longer accessible to visitors.

Danvers State Hospital

The inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft's horror stories and Batman's Arkham Asylum is now a condominium complex.

Danvers, Massachusetts

Added By
Dylan Thuras
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Danvers Hospital in 1893   Wikimedia/public domain
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Stone marker at the cemetery.   perrylunageno / Atlas Obscura User
Walked into history  
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Marie Rose Balter’s Grave in the Cemetery. Co-Author of “Nobody’s Child”   Saradactyl / Atlas Obscura User
Danvers State Hospital graveyard memorial   Kung Fu Dracula / Atlas Obscura User
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About

Danvers State Hospital opened in 1878 as a mental health hospital, serving some 600 patients under its imposing gothic spires. While it was built with a surprisingly caring and modern attitude people with mental illness, by the 1930s the site was crowded, falling into disrepair, and regularly used cruel and inhumane treatments.

The hospital was originally designed to house 500 patients, with additional space that could potentially house up to 1,000 more. But by the 1940s, the hospital regularly held more than 2,000 patients, and overcrowding was severe. Reports came out that the hospital was using inhumane treatments including shock therapy, lobotomies, and straitjackets to treat its patients.

In the 1960s, increased emphasis on alternative treatments and community-based mental health care, the inpatient population at Danvers started to decrease. By 1985, the majority of the original hospital wards were closed or abandoned, and the entire hospital campus was officially shut down in 1992.

The building, with its gothic style and series of underground tunnels, allegedly inspired the Arkham Sanitarium in H. P. Lovecraft's short story "The Thing on the Doorstep," which in turn inspired Batman's Arkham Asylum. In 2001, the director Brad Anderson used the abandoned Danvers State Hospital as the primary filming location for his terrifying film, Session 9.

In 2007, the decaying building was mostly torn down and turned into apartments. Bradlee Danvers, (originally Avalon Danvers) is complete with swimming pool and, aside from a small plaque on the grounds, barely references the site's past. Though some of the original façade remains, the rest of the building has been replaced with chintzy apartments, elliptical machines, and Ikea furniture. However, there is one piece of the former psychiatric hospital  that still exists: its cemetery. 

Related Tags

Cemeteries Abandoned Insane Asylums Abandoned Insane Asylums H. P. Lovecraft Ruins

Know Before You Go

If you're facing the Kirkbride building, head right on the sidewalk through the memorial and all the short way to where the apartments stop and the condos begin. Follow the rock and gravel path downhill until you reach the farm and look to your right to find the occasionally overgrown entrance.

Community Contributors

Added By

Dylan

Edited By

IJVin, dangnewt, ashranasolitude, perrylunageno...

  • IJVin
  • dangnewt
  • ashranasolitude
  • perrylunageno
  • TheDiscoveryService
  • Saradactyl
  • e1savage
  • Collector of Experiences
  • zombiefetishist
  • kew199
  • glegg2011
  • mscollinstm
  • rachel redux
  • RForth
  • Kung Fu Dracula

Published

October 31, 2014

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Sources
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danvers_State_Hospital
  • http://www.avaloncommunities.com/avaloncore/nfloor.asp?comm=306
  • http://www.oddthingsiveseen.com/2008/06/avalon-danvers-apartments-nee-danvers.html
  • http://www.oddthingsiveseen.com/2008/09/ex-danvers-state-hospital-revisited.html
  • www.halsteaddanvers.com
Danvers State Hospital
1101 Kirkbride Drive
Danvers, Massachusetts, 01923
United States
42.582395, -70.977474
Get Directions

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