on the grounds are a number of old hospital buildings which have either been abandoned or repurposed. it's an interesting place, although it feels very solemn, as i don't think it would be a very nice place to have to live. below is a stitched-together photo of the old main hospital building, which is no longer in use, and awaiting potential demolition.
building 25 appears to be the home of music therapy. you can see the lake in the background.
this is where marta would live if she worked at mmhi a hundred years ago.
there are a lot of trails around the grounds, including this one which leads out onto a small peninsula known as governors island.
you can see the capitol across lake mendota from governor's island
there's something a little eerie about strolling through the woods on the grounds of a mental health facility. we couldn't help but thinking that it was the perfect setting for a ghost story. and then we came upon this...
and this...
it was hard not to imagine something creepy going on in this shipping container, so we moved on rather quickly.
11 comments:
What's all that Blair Witch stuff in the background of the Easter Egg photo?
I hear that people who hike on Governors Island go mad. Have you heard that?
I think you just missed out on a party with the boxcar children of Mendota
Come play with us David, come play with us Marta, some inside the boxcar!!! I think some of Twin Peaks was filmed there.
I think it's quite disturbing myself. Maybe next time you can take a gander inside and see how they really treat people with mental illnesses.
it was certainly not the purpose of our bike ride or blog post to make light of the facility or mental illness. as we said in the post, "i don't think it would be a very nice place to have to live." i have no doubt that the treatment of mental illness in this country has a very long way to go.
The special feature of this institute is its multidisciplinary approach in patient care, research and training programmes and also in the promotive, preventive and curative aspects of clinical services in the area of Mental Health and human behavioral science.
the boxcar has something to do with hunting... notice the camo paint job... the egg picture... people like to do strange things to spook others out. I work here and have for 21 years and have seen nothing spooky...
MMHI is actually one of the best mental health institutes in the country. There's a lot of really cool history to it too. I can't imagine it is very cool living there, but they do a lot of good work. And yeah, they've made some incredible advances in mental health treatment. My mom used to work there when I was a kid, and I would sit in the library and read with the library, Mary Ann. Next time you head over there, take a gander at Goodland Hall. It's got some fun history, and its named after a relative of mine.
It does have that solemn feeling to it. I was just over there today in my car. I think that's partially to do with the history of it though.
I can see how it is viewed as creepy and Im sure in the days of lobotomies was not a wonderful place to be. However, as a nurse at this facility, I can tell you that it has been instrumental in changing the negative stigma of mental illness and revolutionized institutional treatment in America. It operates largely as a forensic treatment facility, but also introduced a community program in which adults with mental illness in the community may receive assistance. This program has become a the gold standard of community programs throughout the country. The history is amazing and the staff are truly devoted to treating their patients!
I worked at Mendota from 1967 to 1975 when it was a full fledged mental hospital and housed over 1000 patients. Lorenz Hall was then segregated into men on one side and women on the other. Goodland Hall was for juveniles, girls and boys separated. Stovall was part geriatric and part Dane County unit serving only patients from Dane County. This was a time when people were involuntarily and voluntarily committed, electric shock therapy was common and drugs were starting to become common types of therapy. There was also an alcoholism unit and various outbuildings for research such as Building 2 where no one received medication. Isolation was often used for the most difficult patients. By the time I left Mendota in 1975 the population was down to 150 due to decentralization of mental institutions, however, it was felt to be a national leader in the care and treatment of mental illness.
I spent some time there as a Juvenile. My 14th birthday was spent there. I'm 33 now and still have nightmares about the "treatment" I received and the events that staff allowed to happen and cover up. I went in as an angry teenager looking for attention and came out souless. It has taken many years of accepting I had no control over what happened to me to live a somewhat normal life and still have very little faith in mankind. Seeing these pictures brings tears to my eyes and fills me full of sadness.
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