stephanieNY

The Mirabella Pool in the North End used to be a beach. How cool, right?! The public pool sits right on the water amidst the neighborhood's ball fields and looks out over the Charlestown Navy Yard across the harbor. Although not the height of luxury with its concrete floor and big greasy crowds, the pool is an amazing and cheap ($15 for the whole summer!) amenity to have right across the street from you in the city.

The entire site, including the area of the ball fields, was a huge public beach in the early 1900s. This tiny picture was all I could find online. I also read that the Boston Floating Hospital sat in the harbor right off the North End beach on a boat starting in 1894. Daily trips out to sea was thought to be therapeutic for patients. Now I see why we call it Boston Floating Hospital.

Here's my grandma and me checking out the pool last summer:

And me chillin poolside last week:

I don't spend too much time in the water when I'm at the pool due to the big greasy crowds, but I think bathing in the water at a beach in Boston Harbor might be even less appealing. I'm sure it was much cleaner a hundred years ago.

OMG...an entire website devoted to abandoned insane asylums. Awesome. A few years ago, Sarah, Matt, Kim and I drove up to the abandoned Danvers State Hospital in hopes of getting spooked. The windows were boarded up and the enormous old buildings were all overgrown...really creepy. Kim and I immediately rented the movie Session 9 that was based on and filmed at the hospital.

Aaaanyway, my interest in abandoned insane asylums has been reignited....in a less spooky, scary movie way and in more of a historical, architectural way. I read this blog post the other day. This guy photographs these old places and has noted their self-sufficiency, essentially operating off the grid. At the time that all these institutions were built, patients were completely separated from their lives and society. Maybe isolation was part of their treatment or maybe their community wanted them out. Either way, the hospitals became these self-sustaining communities where they grew their own food, produced their own power, made their own clothes, etc. They are all abandoned now because we treat mentally-ill people with drugs and within our communities now. (I'm paraphrasing that blog post.) The institutions are abandoned and we're tearing the buildings down. (Danvers Stated Hospital came down in 2006.)

Aaargghhhhh...what insanely (no pun intended) efficient and viable structures wasted. And existing! They're already there, built! So, let's demolish this structure that is designed to house lots of people, foster community relations, and utilize this common land, and then let's build here new fake-luxury condominium buildings with some exercise rooms. Booooooo! Maybe people wouldn't want to live in a renovated insane asylum, but it's still a huge shame.

And check out the plan that all of these institutions followed.

Stepped series of double-loaded corridors in two wings extending across the landscape, and thus requiring lots of land. Each wing a district, each stepped section a neighborhood. Everyone has a view and everyone has some sense of privacy.

This is Danvers State Hospital. Can you believe they demolished this?!