Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007
Cold Sad World: Padded Rooms & Broken Glass

Though we like to have some fun on this site, today's adventure has a little more history behind it. The Belchertown State School for the Feeble-Minded was established in 1922 as a home for the mentally ill. The 876 acre campus featured over 50 buildings, including an auditorium, a gymnasium, and its own power plant. However, the conditions were horrible, patients left unattended to sit in their own waste for hours at a time. Many patients died, buried in a makeshift cemetery out back, headstones baring numbers rather than names. It was eventually shut down in 1992, after years of horrible conditions. The building now sits, rotting and alone. Rumor has it that a recent purchaser of the land wishes to convert it into a fancy day spa.

But for now it waits, a reminder of the barbaric practices that went on inside. And who better to document this decay than a bunch of wannabe photographers with a six-pack of Miller High Life?

Here's the team

Jair is a regular man around town, and good friend of mine. A freelance video editor and heavy drinker, he'd be there to look pretty for photos. Eddy was our principle photographer, bringing with him a variety of fancy cameras from the 40s and a bag of costumes. I was there to mainly look retarded for photos, as well as document the experience. Sam was another photographer, one of Eddy's friends from MassArt, the only state funded art school I know of. He would be taking pictures as well. Rosie, Eddy's sister, was responsible for carrying stuff, and Dan served a duel role as photo subject/photographer. And so, we packed these six people into the car and took off.

The day previous to this, Eddy, Sam and others were caught inside the school and given a stern talking to by a local cop with nothing better to do. Today we were disheartened to find that the secret parking space we usually use was now occupied by a cop car, apparently waiting for us to return. Thus we instead took the long way around, a quick detour around a swamp and through some woods.

Here Jair enjoys a moment of quiet contentment, as around him the photographers take art-house photos of the admittedly pretty cool looking swamp.

Around this point, Eddy, Sam and Rosie wandered off towards the school, leaving Jair, Dan and I back at the swamp. Me and Jair quickly set off in search of them, something which took up the next twenty minutes or so. That brick building in the background is just one of the buildings on the outskirts of the massive campus.

It's really bizarre to see such a huge parking lot so deserted. You can see Jair in the background, still in search of Eddy and the crew. Eventually we got a call from Eddy, who sent Rosie to meet up with us and lead us to where they were. That building is the one we would eventually end up doing most of our work inside. Sadly, there's been a lot of vandalism over the years. A piano that was in fine condition last time we came was smashed apart upon this visit. Beer cans also litter the floors, from other drunken revelers. I guess we can't hate them for doing the same as us though.

Here Eddy is starting to set up for some shots in the cafeteria while we loitered around and drank cans of Miller High Life. Everywhere you went there was broken ceiling tiles lying around, glass windows shattered. The place was a mess, very hard to navigate.

Here's an example of one of the floors, overturned furniture and debris everywhere. Me and Rosie took a quick look around, exploring all the different rooms. Some, like the bathing room, still contained some rather unnerving sets of restraints.

Don't let the camera flash fool you, there was little to no light inside other than the flashlights we'd brought with us. For comparison, here's a shot with the flash on. Take notice of the flashlight in Jair's left hand.

Here's the same picture without the flash. That tiny light is Jair's flashlight. Kind of hard to avoid things in this dark, and we often found ourselves tripping over chairs and the like. It wasn't made any easier by Eddy's next film experiment...

Eddy pauses to reflect with a cigarette. Prior to this he had us running around in the dark with flashlights while he snapped away on an ancient film camera. The thing took about ten pictures a minute, and for those of you film buffs out there, in order to make action look fluid you need about 24 frames a second. So, us running around in the dark for about fifteen minutes netted about 7 seconds worth of total footage. That's what I get for being friends with an art major. I also hit my head on something, I think I was bleeding a little.

Me and Dan in our hospital scrubs, ready for the magic to happen. Notice the "No Trespassing" and "Danger Asbestos" signs. They were just about everywhere. We ain't no pussies though. Just two dumbasses wearing hospital scrubs and breathing asbestos.

I adjust my glasses, surrounded by the disarray of a forgotten time. Eddy originally tried to get me to wear this see through green blouse he had brought along. I politely declined.

This is actually natural light. There was a single empty hole in the wall where a window used to be, and this beautiful beam of light was shining through it like a holy beacon. Jair basked in its warmth for awhile. The photographers surrounded him and snapped away.

Jair and Rosie relax on the frame of a long destroyed couch, waiting for the art school kids to finish up their business and move on. Though it was nice being in a room with a little light for a change. I think this used to be a playroom of some sort, seeing as there was a disassembled plastic playhouse lying against the wall out of the frame.

We find the padded room we were looking for and Eddy sets up shop, ready for another masterpiece. The shards of safety glass lining the floor made posing precarious, though Eddy got his shots. He was upset for me refusing to drool for the picture. He also made Dan pose with a hand down his pants. The things we do for art, I swear. Rosie was the lucky one, getting to curl up in the corner looking sad in an old prom dress.

Getting into character I guess.

Our merry band makes its way out onto the roof, me and Dan still wearing hospital scrubs. I took this opportunity to run back downstairs and grab my clothes and gear from where I left it. I must admit, being alone in the dark in a place like this doesn't feel all that great. Being out on the roof was a nice change of atmosphere.

Relaxing in the shade, Rosie paints a portrait of youthful rebellion. These's few things in this world more beautiful than lighting up on the roof of a former mental hospital.

Jair stands on top of the world.

We all climbed onto the roof of the stairwell for a group photo with Eddy behind the lens. Shortly afterwards some random car pulled into the adjacent parking lot and we quickly scampered off the roof. But now we had our pictures...

... it was time to go home

Google the Belchertown State School if you're interested, a bunch of kids with cameras exploring one building over the course of a few hours doesn't even begin to do the story justice. Check the site in the future to see the pictures the others took, as well as a compilation of some of the film footage we shot. Hopefully Eddy's seven second strobophonic light show will make up for all the tramping through the overgrown wasteland surrounding the place. Good luck and god bless.