Tag: Hospital Hill

Hospital Hill is the colloquial name for the land on which Northampton State Hospital once stood. In 2007 MassDevelopment, one of the agencies involved with developing the state hospital campus decided in a rebranding effort to change the project name from Village at Hospital Hill to Village Hill Northampton so that corporate tenants need not be troubled any moral significance.

A Good Place to Take Girls

From Karelia Stetz-Waters
Monday, July 29, 2013

One of the things I liked most about attending Smith College in the mid 90′s was the abandoned mental asylum located just beyond the athletic fields.

What English major and aspiring writer doesn’t want to go to school in the shadow of a Gothic castle in which people were once shocked, water-boarded, and sent into insulin coma? The Smith girls brave enough to enter the asylum said the walls were smeared in blood. Eighteen, Gen X, and goth, this impressed me immensely.

It was also a good place to take girls.

The asylum had been the site of one of my first dates with my wife. I was 22 and knew nothing about women. She was 32, classy, tough, and athletic–a perfect combination. Plus, she was incalculably rich–in my barely-post-college estimation–that is to say, she had a real job. She was a catch. I had to impress her so I bought a bottle of cognac and took her drinking in the woods behind the asylum.

My wife married me, so the asylum date must have worked.

This summer, I thought I’d go back to pay homage. After all, my wife married me, so the asylum date must have worked. Plus the asylum was the inspiration for my first novel, Dysphoria, and I was still basking in the glow of graduating from aspiring writer to published author.

“They tore it down,” my friend said.

I took the news like the news of a sudden death. I didn’t believe it. Leaving my friends in town, I trudged across the athletic fields, hoping reports of the asylum’s demolition had been overblown. It had to be there. It was so massive, so dark, so unspeakable. It couldn’t really be gone.

But it was. It was worse than gone. It was gone, and in its place, someone had built an idyllic suburb, with water-saving landscaping, communal bike sheds, and green space. There was bark dust and Japanese maples and little children running through sprinklers.

Hospital development finally taking hold

From The Republican
By Ellie Cook
Monday, October 4, 2010

Fall’s here, and with winter bearing down, projects race to the finish. If this most beautiful season proves long, work can go on right through November.

Village Hill, where the state hospital used to be (the R44 bus still has a Hospital Hill sign), has undergone a huge transformation in the past few years. At first it seemed that people were wary of buying into the new development, and the economy didn’t help.

But according to city businessman and longtime real estate agent Pat Goggins, the Kollmorgen Electro-Optical Corp. plant going up on the South Campus makes people more confident that the development will take hold. “The community has finally decided that it’s really going to happen up there,” he said last week.

He commented, as many have, on the development’s “walkability,” situated as it is about three-quarters of a mile from town, with its bike and walking paths.

Goggins, who is handling the marketing of new homes in the development, talked about the work along the eastern side of the North Campus on Olander Drive.

In the area called Morningside, four single-family houses have been built there, and all of them are now sold, the latest one early this month. Six more will be finished by early next summer; of those, four are “going into the ground in the next six weeks,” builder Jonathan Wright said last week. All six are under deposit, Goggins said. A total of 11 are planned, according to Wright.

Wright attributed the keener interest in those homes to the builders’ expanding the original two designs to seven, some of them “cottage” and “farmhouse” style – a bit smaller and less expensive. The cost ranges from $479,000 to $589,000.

The three four-condo townhouses, opposite Morningside, are two-thirds built. The first building is already entirely owner-occupied. The second is nearly finished, and two of those four condos are under deposit. Around the corner, the final building is set for a spring finish, with one condo already under deposit. They go for $269,000 to $379,000.

New life given to Hospital Hill

From The Republican
Saturday, May 17, 2008
By Fred Contrada

The developers of Village Hill harked back to the days of Northampton State Hospital yesterday as they prepared to build a new community on the rubble of the former hospital for the mentally ill.

The groundbreaking paved the way for the construction of 11 single-family homes, 12 townhouse and 40 units of mixed-income housing on what was once called Hospital Hill. The ceremony took place on the site of Old Main, the hospital’s administrative building and architectural centerpiece. Old Main was demolished last year.

Jonathan A. Wright, the chief executive officer of Wright Builders Inc., told a gathering of dignitaries that he hopes the neighborhood of houses he is building will contribute to the site’s rich history.

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Mike Kirby: Back Row, Back Ward

From Community Radio Hour
Thursday, February 7, 2008
By Mary Serreze

Former City Councilor Mike Kirby is a political activist, a freelance investigative journalist, and author. His most recent book, “Back Row, Back Ward” examines the history of the efforts to redevelop Hospital Hill, former site of the Northampton Lunatic Asylum. He spins an arcane tale, involving public agencies, private developers, a string of mayors, and an Advisory Committee that caught the eye of the State Ethics Commission. It’s an alphabet soup: the State Division of Capital Planning and Operations (DCPO), The Community Builders (TCB), The Citizens’ Advisory Committee (CAC), Hospital Hill LLC, and the mysterious Northampton Development Corporation (NDC). He paints a picture of wishful thinking, back room dealing, pre-ordained conclusions, and disregard for historical values in the pursuit of profit.

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Housing plans get green look

From The Republican
Sunday, February 03, 2008
By Nancy Gonter

The 33 single-family homes and townhouses that Wright Builders plans to construct at Village Hill Northampton will be some of the greenest homes in the city.

Jonathan A. Wright, president of Wright Builders of 48 Bates St., said that construction of the homes will follow the exacting standards required to get the so-called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification which was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council for environmentally sustainable construction.

Construction to the “LEED” standard requires documenting during the construction process that less waste was sent to landfills, miles driven for the project are limited and that soil on the site is conserved, Wright said. There are a series of other standards that must also be followed, he said.

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Village Hill projects gain Planning Board approval

From Daily Hampshire Gazette
Friday, January 25, 2008
by Andrew Horton

Plans for the future “smart growth” development of the north campus of the former Northampton State Hospital are taking shape.

On Thursday, the Planning Board approved two housing projects proposed by Wright Builders, for what is now called Village Hill.

One project, called Eastview, is expected to develop 12 condominium, market-rate townhouse units in three buildings, all within a single two-thirds of an acre parcel of Village Hill.

Eastview – which would be located at the corner of Olander Drive and Moser Street – is expected to be pedestrian-friendly and will include walkways and bicycle racks.

Another neighborhood, called Morningside, will call for the construction of 11 market-rate single family homes just across the street from Eastview along Olander Drive. Each home in Morningside is expected to include a garage, front porch, back deck, and adjoining private backyard patio. The Morningside homes will also share a common sidewalk running along Olander Drive.

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Hospital Hill housing to start

From The Republican
Saturday, January 12, 2008
By Fred Contrada

The first newly built residential units on Hospital Hill could break ground as soon as April 1 after the Planning Board approved the project Thursday night.

Community Builders, which is developing part of the residential component of the Village Hill Northampton project, sought and received permission to build 40 apartment units in six buildings on three parcels. Thirty-two of those units will be affordable to people earning up to 60 percent of the median area income. Twelve of those 32 will be earmarked for clients of the Department of Mental Health.

The entire campus where the commercial-industrial-residential complex is being built was once the site of Northampton State Hospital. The city gained control of the land when the state deinstitutionalized clients in the early 1990s, placing many of them in community settings. The project had been called the Village at Hospital Hill but MassDevelopment, the quasi-public agency overseeing the project, changed the name to Village Hill Northampton because it said some prospective commercial tenants were turned off by the reference to the hospital.

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Northampton to see changes

From The Republican

Thursday, January 03, 2008
By Fred Contrada

If all goes according to plan, 2008 will leave Northampton looking markedly different than it looked on Jan. 1.

A number of major construction projects will change the face of downtown Northampton and nearby Hospital Hill. The latter, which in recent years has been used mostly for sledding, will take a giant step toward begin turned it into a village with businesses and residents of all income levels.

Once the city’s biggest employer, Northampton State Hospital was a village of sorts in its heyday, with its own farm, bowling alley and beauty parlor. Since the Department of Mental Health began relocating patients into the community in the early 1990s, the city has dreamed of turning the site into a new kind of village.

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Hospital Hill ghosts restless over change

From The Republican

Monday, December 17, 2007
by Fred Contrada

Once upon a time – 1856 to be precise – the great lights of their day built an asylum for the insane atop a hill in Northampton and called it the Northampton Lunatic Hospital.

You wouldn’t have wanted to spend the weekend there, but it was created with the good intention of providing humane treatment for the mentally ill.

In 1903, with the patient population up to 650, the institution changed its name to Northampton State Hospital. By 1952, there were more than 1,000 patients and the place was a village unto itself.

With more than 500 workers, it was the biggest employer in Northampton. Many of them lived on the grounds and went from one building to another through underground tunnels.

The hospital boasted its own farm, piggery, bowling alley and beauty parlor. Legend has it there was also a sort of Potter’s Field where inmates were buried in unmarked graves, the location of which remains unknown to this day.

By the 1990s, the approach to mental health had come full circle and the powers that be declared the mentally ill were better served in the communities from which they came. The hospital gradually shut down, and everyone left. But for all the blood, sweat and tears shed there, the place will forever be known as Hospital Hill.

Wait. Make that Village Hill Northampton.

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Northampton State Hospital