By Barney Beal, Staff writer
Daily Hampshire Gazette. Thursday August 2, 2001.
NORTHAMPTON – The Northampton State Hospital, which once housed thousands of mentally ill patients, has become a temptation for college-age thrill seekers drawn at night to the abandoned rooms and tunnels by MTV and the Internet.
According to the Massachusetts State Police, which is responsible for making arrests on the hospital grounds, 31 people have been arrested there since the beginning of the year and numerous others issued criminal summonses.
People caught wandering through the buildings can be charged with trespassing on state property and breaking and entering. Those arrested often claim they were motivated to see the hospital after hearing on the MTV show “Fear” that it is one of the scariest places in the country, police said.
However, a spokeswoman for MTV said the show has never created such a list or mentioned the Northampton State Hospital on the program.
On the program, a small group of contestants is placed overnight in a scary building and told to accomplish small tasks that require testing their fear of the supernatural. Trespassers at the state hospital have been caught with cameras taking pictures and videotape of themselves walking through the buildings, recreating the show.
A search of the Internet finds three different Web sites with accounts and pictures of people exploring the buildings. At the site www.geocities.com/ironfistorg/NoHo_Index.html, a group calling itself IRONFIST describes in self-congratulatory terms how it sneaked into the buildings to obtain footage of abandoned rooms and broken hospital equipment.
“The forbidding eternal appearance of the Northampton State Hospital is enough to discourage even the most intrepid explorers. But the presence of a highly skilled 24-hour security firm is even more of a reason to give the location a wide berth. IRONFIST saw this presence of security not as a discouragement, but as an invitation to penetrate the building and explore without being known to have been in,” one passage from the Web site reads.
IRONFIST is among a growing number of organizations calling themselves Urban Explorers that break into abandoned buildings, city tunnels or military bases around the country to explore. Accounts of visits to the Northampton State Hospital can also be found at www.darkpassage.com/forays/Northampton.html and www.sinister.com/~ianh/asylum.html.
Intrigue, danger
One reason for the increased interest in the hospital was a project in November when a German artist placed speakers throughout the complex and played J.S. Bach’s “Magnificat,” police said.
“It think it intrigues them. If somebody’s willing to spend $1 million to soothe the ailing souls, it might be haunted,” Massachusetts State Police Trooper Jeremy Cotton said.
While the grounds may be a source of interest to explorers, they are dangerous as well. Broken glass, syringes and asbestos are all over the buildings, Cotton said. “If they do get hurt in there, we’d have a hard time getting them out. With continued access, injuries are only inevitable.”
Trespassers have taken mementoes of their visits, such as old medical files or items from the morgue, one of the more popular destinations, police said.
According to one security guard, a stained glass window that would have required a truck and ladder to remove has been taken.
And there have been reports of stolen building materials.
In June Joshua Charbonneau, 21, 23 Nagler Cross Road, Huntington, and Jordan J. Skipper, 24, of Montgomery, submitted to facts sufficient to warrant a guilty finding in Northampton District Court on charges of trespassing on state or county property, vandalizing a state building and larceny under $250. They were assessed $135 fines and ordered to perform 20 days of community service after they were caught stealing 200 pounds of copper sheets from the grounds. The most common penalty for trespassers in a $50 fine, police said.
‘Tight security’
MassDevelopment is the economic development agency which is a partner with The Community Builders of Springfield in redeveloping the former state hospital property.
MassDevelopment took over management from the state July 1 and has extended the contract with the firm handling security on the grounds, said David Webster, vice president of community planning and development.
“We fully intend to keep tight security out there and if we catch people we intend to prosecute them,” Webster said. “It’s private property. People have no business being there. It’s dangerous.”
Webster said they plan to secure all the doors and windows, but he acknowledged that securing the entire site is a difficult talk because the grounds are so large.
A security guard is on duty 24 hours. However, according to one guard, people can drive on to the grounds with their headlights off or simply walk in and they won’t be noticed.
Reference this article
Beal, Barney. 2001. “NSH Buildings Attract the Daring.” Daily Hampshire Gazette, August 2, 2001. https://northamptonstatehospital.org/2001/08/02/nsh-buildings-attract-the-daring/.
