The hospital first opened its doors in 1904 in Norwich, Connecticut. It was built in an idyllic location chosen for its therapeutic properties overlooking the River Thames.
The Norwich Insane Asylum was built isolated from civilization, which worked to its benefit as it began to grow during its early years sprouting new buildings that accompanied the original construction (see aerial view of the hospital here). These new construction projects included patient wards, staff cottages, laboratories and workshops. All of the structures were interconnected by a large network of underground utility tunnels. These tunnels transported electricity, hot water, and patients to various areas on the grounds. The hospital remained self-sufficient, almost like a small town, with its own power plant, pump house, working farm, kitchen, theater and church.
Over 3,000 patients and 1,000 employees were residents on the asylum grounds in the 1950’s.
Slowly patients began to leave Norwich State Hospital due to deinstitutionalization and it permanently closed its doors in 1996. Since then time has basically stood still on the property with a few exceptions. Currently there is talk about converting the grounds into a theme park, but nothing has been set in stone.
After a long tedious drive we leave the car in a commuter parking lot close to the buildings. Ever the vigilant group of explorers we notice a State Trooper making his rounds and dive into the forest for cover. Luckily we outsmarted the police yet again and after regrouping walk along the Thames River for a few hundred feet. We finally see the abandoned pump house looming in the distance and decide to make this our entryway into the campus.
This site has a reputation for being well guarded, well patrolled, and does not take kindly to trespassers. I am always on edge when exploring across the Atlantic and the numerous “State Property – No Trespassing” signs that litter the grounds did not bode well for my paranoia. Instead of exposing ourselves above ground to security and prying eyes, we decided to take the underground route through the utility tunnels.
Using the tunnels we explored many buildings without ever being forced to go outside. This method of travel was soon confirmed to be the safest. On our first attempt to venture outside we were only a few feet away from a security officer in a black uniform. Fortunately he didn’t look our way and we quickly receded back into the tunnel network. For a while we hid in the abandoned theater so we could look around the campus without being seen.
This encounter with security dampened our spirits and made our visit a whole lot shorter than we would have liked. We made our grande exit through the empty chapel, this allowed us to avoid walking back through the forest. As we were walking back to the commuter lot to pickup our car we noticed the State Trooper had been watching us as we suspiciously walked down the road. I wonder where we went to and were coming back from?!
Archive document introducing a new therapy (click to enlarge):
Special thanks to Dr. Bob for sharing the old postcards.
the architech wrote` '....the lab technitions grabbed them and ran many tests on them a long time ago so now they staged this to look like it was their fault but in all reality they were used as lab rats. think about it, its so easy to stage something like that and get away with it!! it happens all the time! ....'
heh. how .long did it take you to come up with that well thought out little theory gatekeeper? you are taking the piss right?
Forget to take your medication this morning?
i highly doubt it was suicide, i be it was because they were the last patients of the underground labs and they didnt have anywhere to dispose of them because people were getting to close to the place with the tv show that went on so the traffic near the place has grown. so what do they do? they stage a suicide so they can get rid of these bodies. see it most likely was a couple that got too close to the place and found something out so the lab technitions grabbed them and ran many tests on them a long time ago so now they staged this to look like it was their fault but in all reality they were used as lab rats. think about it, its so easy to stage something like that and get away with it!! it happens all the time! conspiracy!!!
Police: 2 Preston deaths result of suicide
Preston, Conn. — Police believe the two people whose bodies were found in a car off Route 2A in Preston on Saturday committed suicide, said Lt. J. Paul Vance, spokesman for the state police.
“We’re not looking for anybody in reference to this incident. It’s not a murder-suicide,” Vance said Sunday.
Vance said a passerby noticed the car on a dirt road in a wooded area about 500 feet off Route 2A and asked state police to look into it.
Vance said investigators had identified the pair, a man and a woman, but their names and ages were being withheld Sunday. They are Connecticut residents, he said.
The state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was expected to conduct an autopsy today.
Two bodies found in car off Route 2A Police call deaths 'untimely'
Updated: Saturday, 12 Jun 2010, 10:26 PM EDT Published : Saturday, 12 Jun 2010, 10:26 PM EDT
New London, Connecticut (WTNH) - State Police are investigating the deaths of two people found in a car parked off Route 2A in Preston.
The car was discovered Saturday just down the road from the abandoned Norwich State Hospital on a path leading int the woods.
A man and a woman were found inside, but the identities are not being released pending family notification.
Investigators are classifying this as an untimely death. However, police say there is no criminal aspect to this case.
An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.
Thank you
anyone hear any news on those 2 found dead on 2a near the hospital yesterday? Thats crazy
ken i just browsed through youre pictures you posted and i wanted to say bravo!! very well done!
that was cool and the pix were kinda freaky, looks like that shutter island movie
Ya gotta take bomb with a grain of salt...huge grain!! Sparkles and I did NsH and Seaside today...relaxing Sun.
Tell us about your night at nsh bomb.. what do you mean by bad ass..was it scary?
sparkles how thing going i just got back from nsh have you ever spent the night there if not you have to bad ass
...Um... Fuck you.
Maybe we dont post because your gay!
How come hardly anyone posts anymore?
The male ward at huds is ske-tchy! Haa.
its ok because I guess in 1915 they thought that was no longer PC so they changed the name to Training School for Feebleminded.
Sounds like where I work.
Man may wear many masks.
another acronym for hudson river state hospital, this would be hudson river pediatric center. no hospital ever seams to have 1 name
I still like School for Imbeciles the best. great name for a connecticut school
HRPC?
Ricky Bobby, thanks for you feed back, the dinig room was awsome. I loved the lites, the fans and the lack of grafiti in the building was quite impressive. the building was very moldy and wet. walking around I was very lite footed because when the 1st floor is wet on the 2nd it has to be soft. it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. the glass atrium was amazing too. what I really like about that building was the fact you can tell not meny have been in there and it is what you want to see what a place looks like 14 years of abandenment. the building we are talking about is seymour
the ribs are getting better. believe it or not they fell better when I am doing stuff. when I sit to long lay down or try to sleep I think they tighten up because they hurt. a few weeks and I'll be able to scale and climb again.
HRPC is one of the places I want to get to, the plan is late summer earl fall, I have a freind eho lives up near there and will visit him while I am up there.
good luck to all Ken
Ken, I must say, impressive work; I especially love the pealing paint picks! The dining room, with the fans, complimented with the pealing paint are really cool. I have been to HRPC twice last year and the pics brought back fond memories!
I hope your ribs get better soon! Be safe!
i have been to one of these meeting funny is not the word for a crime is a better word for it
I find this funny and comes from minets from last weeks PRA meeting under f finance update www.preston-ct.org
In PRA's three checking accounts there is currently $70,892 in the PRA's 2009/2010 budget the current budget is $78,007.62 the Legal bill is $842,000
I hope thoes contractors get paid
in this meeting there is a long speach from the chairman about someone who wanted to be put on the agenda by the Buildings and Facilities committee and was denied. a resident commented that they should have just put them on the agenda and denied there request, it would have taken the same amount of time as the chairmans rant about how it is a waste of time if it does not help the current working of the PRA
They are tring to let them of to use the Ash land fill to dump all the hazzardest material because the cap that is currently on it is damaged and LEAKING!. they want to use it to dump and cap it correctly. there works not mine.
a resident asked it a grant to save a building was applied to and given does that mean that the building was now safe from demolision and they answered, gee we don't know will have to check with legal on that. I would keep an eye on these people, I smell theifs
they said someone backfilled asbestos in a hole at least once and that it would be a nono if the epa finds out it was happening
if you read prior meetings they discussed and aproved alarms, no details where. the also have an offer from norwich public utilities (NPU) to get power to admin for free but they need power to kettle now, they also don't want to be back billed from NPU if they decide to go withCL&P in 2 years
I would keep an eye on these meetings, they had another tonight and have one every week, if you are a preston resident I would go to the meetings and watch your tax money get pissed away
iam going to spend all day saturday at nsh an sleep over to say good bye to the old place.i think when the old girl comes crashing down it's going to be sad.
Yea it does take days to go through them all. and just when you think your done I throw another set of 500 or so up,
good luck
anyone can find me at qs9999@aol.com on facebook
thankyou for your reply 'what's going on'. that makes a lot of sense. Ive been going though your sets on flckr for days. really, really helpful. thankyou for posting them.
sparkles - that must have been scary!. I think 'Ghost Hunters' and here in the UK we have 'Most Haunted' TV programmes are usually hyped up rubbish. Not sure on a personal level if i believe in ghosts as entities but i do believe that buildings can absorb human emotion if its traumatic enough or around for long enough which can be replayed after as echos. old asylums and hospitals would be the places it seems to me to have the ideal conditions for this type of thing with decades of mental illness, unhappiness and confusion ingrained into the very fabric of the place.
maybe that's why we find these places so fascinating.
There is a new set all the way on the bottom. I am going to post all the sets and what buildings are included in each. I will not be able to visit the site for a while because on my last visit I bruised a few ribs and I will need some time before I can go into any of this stuff, there are other sites I want to go to and I am not worried, nsh will be around a while longer Thank you Set 1 www.flickr.com includes; Main building (theater, kitchen, cafeteria) Main garage Main shop Maintiance shop Carr shop Tin shop Power house Stedman Salmon
Set 2 www.flickr.com includes; Kettle Lodge Galup Earle Brigham White Sterling Laundry OT Building (Russell)
Set 3 www.flickr.com Includes Small building behind Bell Mitchell Trade School Annex Bell Woodward Awl Administration building
Set 4 www.flickr.com Includes Lab (aka Research building)(aka Ribicoff) Seymour OT Building (Russell) Theater and library Kirkbridge Galt Rav Cottage 3 Lippitt
Hello all, First I would like to congratulate Zoe and hope it all goes well, plan your trip well because there is so much to see you will never get the whole place in 1 day.
About what is going on site Lets go over this one more time because you guys all seem to thing nsh is going to disappear tomorrow 1st the budget projected for CLEAN UP is $60 million dollars 2nd budget for this year only $1 million dollars So how much work you think is going to get done. And since when can any government agency do something on budget?
Step 1 is abatement, if you look it up it means to clean up all the hazardous materials on site. This includes asbestos, mercury, and PCB’s are the biggest concerns.
they can’t just start knocking things down because it is against there contract for the sale and the EPA has been through there and will not allow demolition until the buildings and ground is clean. Asbestos in the air is bad, mercury and PCB in the oils cannot go into the ground water table and with the river right there they are not going to waiver on that.
The only building that is safe right now is the administration building and if you read the grants papers they can’t demo that building now if they do they have to pay back the grant. There is always a time attached to the grant of like 20 years.
They are trying to get Salmon and Awl amended to the grant but it has been denied so far.
I think someone thought they could get grants for each building and then found out that’s not going to happen. They are finding out they are going to have to flip almost the whole bill and it’s not going well down town. If you read there early proposals they thought they were going to buy the place for $1 and get grants to clean the place up. And be up on top, now they are finding historical grants are hard to come by you can only get one per site per organization. Insurance and taxes are expensive, insurance wants security on site, they want electricity and toilets, plus the sale contract says they have to start cleaning up the site this year. I can’t wait to see what happens.
When Paul and I went I heard voices. Then we were sitting there in the pitch black and we heard banging that kept getting closer to where we were sitting. (I think that was in lodge? Maybe Russell.)
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