Abandonment
Baker Mills
The Baker and Forbes mills were constructed in 1891 and 1911, respectively. They provided employment for many people in the Dorchester area producing Baker’s Chocolate for many years. The brand was acquired by General Foods and in 1962 the company decided to consolidate their operations and move production to Delaware. Employees were given the option…
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Grafton State Hospital – Trips 1 and 2
Grafton State Hospital opened in 1901 and closed in 1973 after growing to encompass a huge campus. The building which remains abandoned definitely shows evidence of its age and attempts to retrofit more modern systems to it over the years. Most of these shots are on Fuji Pro 160s, and were my first experiment with…
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Norwich State Hospital
Norwich was a popular place. Lots of explorers loved this place and always seemed to pull great pictures out of it, no matter how many times they went. I did not love this place. It was scuzzy and empty and I just could never get really great shots. It seemed like every time I went,…
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Belchertown State School
I have explored many mental health institutions in my travels, but Belchertown is one of a very few which truly gave me the creeps. It is the only place I can claim to have ever encountered anything which seemed even remotely supernatural (though it is a stretch to even say what I encountered here was…
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Northampton State Hospital and Memorial Complex – Trips 7 and 8
Another predawn run to NoHo but, as the demolition was progressing, I spent more time photographing the Memorial Complex across the street. The last two images are from a June 29, 2008 trip to the Memorial Complex
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Medfield State Hospital
Medfield State Hospital is a pleasant cottage style asylum. Its buildings are modern enough to consider productive re-use, so hopefully the place can be saved. It housed an active parole board facility until recently.
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Northampton State Hospital – Trip 6
By the time April 2006 rolled around, it was clear that demolition of the hospital was imminent. There were rumors about state troopers hanging around the hospital busting people, so I decided I would conduct a pre-dawn raid. As it turned out, there wasn’t a soul around and it was an incredibly peaceful trip. One…
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Northampton State Hospital – Trip 4
I managed to drag my wife, who is not an avid explorer, with me on Trip 4. Trip 4 was around when I got my 50mm f1.8, so a lot of experiments with depth of field here. By this point I was at least starting to dial in my composition skills and get some level…
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Northampton State Hospital – Trip 3
At this point, I was obsessed with exploring Northampton State Hospital – I was driving 2 hours out to Northampton every weekend. Definitely something that, in retrospect, I am incredibly happy I did. I had a pretty short window before this place was demolished and I can truly say that I visited this incredible place…
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