A couple of pictures from my visit to the Traverse City Mental Hospital

[L107ANGEL]

This is freaking me out. I have the same thing tattooed on my arm. It's really small print.

 

[Nynaeve]

Great pics Iwas, very creepy!
Reminds of an old hospital in St. Louis. They were renovating it into condos when we lived there. It was rumored to be haunted, creep since we were only a few blocks away!

 

[Crankyshank]

Here's a site showing abandoned asylums: http://www.abandonedasylum.com/photos.html

Anyone ever search for abandoned theme parks? They'll creep you out, big-time.

I used to work practically next door to the Foxboro Hospital on that site. Creepy place! The Jaycees used to have their haunted house in parts of the tunnel that connects the buildings. Scared the beejeezus out of me! Especially since someone still lives in those tunnels My Dad has worked near there for 30 something years and said when they shut the hospital down, they would periodically find bodies from when a patient wandered off.

 

[willis37862]

Here's a site showing abandoned asylums: http://www.abandonedasylum.com/photos.html

Anyone ever search for abandoned theme parks? They'll creep you out, big-time.

Cool website thanks for sharing.

Iwas I love the photos and I love creepy old building too. If you ever make it to PA you have to check out the Eastern State Penitentiary it was so cool and it was one of those places you talked about being able to feel the history there. They haven't restored much of it so some of the walls are crumbling and their is old furniture left in some of the cells. It was really neat. Here is the website and they even do it up for Halloween.

http://www.easternstate.org/

 

[phorsenuf]

There's a Mexican restaurant in Concord, NH that's in the old jail. Some of the tables are in little cells, it's kind of cool.

Marguaritas. I love eating there, was just there a week ago in fact. The cells are cool to eat in.

 

[SwedishMeatball]

Those pics are cool. I would never live there though. It kind of reminds me of the Waverly Hills TB hospital in Louisville, KY. Although, it's not nearly as nice looking now. There was a terrible movie made about it, Death Tunnel. I have lots of friends that used to hang out there and swear that it is haunted.

Ghost Hunters visited Waverly Hills. It was wicked cool!!

Awesome pics Iwas. I would love to see TAPS pay a visit there.

 

[Aidensmom]

I love old building like that, but a lot of them do seem creepy. It's like you can just feel all of the history there. Very neat pictures!

 

[IwasatWDWforamonth]

This is freaking me out. I have the same thing tattooed on my arm. It's really small print.

good one

 

[IwasatWDWforamonth]

IWAWFM, have you ever seen Neverwas???? It is a great movie (at least I loved it). It takes place in an old mental institution and the psychiatrist's father killed himself after being there. The main character wants to get others the help his father never got. The plot revolves around a children's book the father wrote. It is very interesting. Wonderful acting. Rent it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418004/

that does sound interesting,

thanks

 

[IwasatWDWforamonth]

OP...how did you get to visit that old hospital? I'd *love* to take a look inside myself, especially on Halloween. It's quite a structure and I hope it gets bought and renovated.

They have it pretty much boarded up now, but there was a time when people would sneak inside.

I'd loved to have looked in the windows too but it was to dark to see anything.

Its in such a beautiful area, there are nature trails.

im glad I read about it online, it was a neat experience

 

[helloirishkitty]

I work at the psychiatric center where I live, and we have beautiful old buildings that the state just doesn't want to fix up. They completely abandoned them, built our new(ish) hospital, and just left them to rot. They are so pretty, and everytime we sneak into them, you can see (what's left) of the artifacts and charts... and you can definitely feel the history

 

[mommaU4]

Wow, there's a thread title I never thought I'd see on the DIS or anywhere for that matter.

I was born in Traverse City, MI. We moved out to CA. when I was young and that's where I grew up BUT we took many trips back and forth from CA. to MI. as our family was still there, and still is.

In 2004 I moved from CA. with my husband and kids and we lived in the Traverse City area for 3 years. Just moved to Vegas this summer.

So you can see why it caught my eye.

My Grandfather still lives in the TC area and worked at the hospital from approximately 1967 until about 1988. As you said the hospital closed in 1989, and they were already phasing things out and relocating patients so he took an early retirement.

When the hospital closed most of the patients were relocated with quite a few of them going to a hospital in Newberry, MI. but a few were just released into their own care. Apparently according to my mom, alot of them lived in the swampy, wetlands area not far from the hospital near what is now a Meijer store.

My mom said she remembers after that happened she stopped wearing white socks for awhile because that's what all the released patients wore, folded down white socks, and she didn't want to be mistaken for one of them!

I'm sure my Grandfather has quite a few stories from his 20+ years working there. I should ask him. I'd hear bits and pieces of stories over the years but to be honest when I was younger I wasn't interested.

I do remember one about a patient who escaped and hung himself in the woods behind the hospital. And stories about the tunnels they used to transport the patients from one building to another. Very creepy indeed.

When we moved this summer they were still working on fixing them up so you could in fact live there if you wanted to. There is a restaurant called Stella's Trattoria or something like that.
http://www.stellatc.com/
We talked about eating there but have four kids who prefer Olive Garden, so we never did.

There are also offices, and I remember seeing a day care or pre-school of some sort. It will be interesting to see how it's transformed once it's all done.

My husband worked for those 3 years we all lived there, at Munson Medical Center which you probably saw since it's literally right next door. So he was always passing by the place.

We often wondered what stories that place holds, what things took place there over the years. I don't know, I'm not very intune with that sort of thing I guess because I never "felt" anything in all the times we were there. It just seemed like a neat old place with lots of history.

Huh, now that I've seen this thread and the pics it's made me think I should call my Grandpa tomorrow and see what stories he can remember about working there. Maybe I'll ask him to focus on any particularly haunting ones.

Thanks for sharing these and I do hope you enjoyed your time in TC. It's such a beautiful place to be, except in the winter, which is why we are now in Vegas.

ETA: If you do a Google search on Traverse City State Hospital you'll find tons of info and also do an Image search for more pics of the place.
Here's a website with some really cool pics:
http://photo.net/photodb/folder.tcl?folder_id=179614