took a drive last fall and wound up here, taking a wistful walk through the publicly accessible area of this building, remembering all the good times. I always felt this place unfairly got a bad rap from other explorers because it wasn't a Kirkbride or had a name that rhymed with "lever". it sure as hell wasn't the most exciting place, but by god it felt like home.
what remains of this complex is teetering on the edge of extinction - only a handful of labs and offices are still open in here, the stench of moldy carpets and the mildew steadily creeping along the ceiling tiles overwhelms you when the doors slide open and you catch that first breath of stale air.
it's super fucking weird what they've done with the place, or to be more accurate, what they HAVEN'T done. the water treatment facility is finished, the goofy ass luxury apartments are full of tenants, and yet this monstrosity remains the centerpiece of the whole shebang. when I rolled up, people were laying in the grass sunning themselves and playing frisbee with their dogs in the shadow of the main building. like you've got Big Shot Becky with her pristine bronze tan and a bottle of San Pellegrino sitting 15ft away from something out of 28 Days Later. i can't imagine what it must be like to live here.....then again, i can't imagine what it must be like to be someone who decided to buy a unit at Avalon Danvers either.
very liminal. I always liked this part of the facility even though it wasn't the main attraction. something about that super staid early 90s aesthetic, like walking through a quiet terminal at the airport. the mailboxes haven't been used in god knows how long based on the look of them, and a package dated from over the previous summer sat on the floor completely untouched
no smoking at the payphones! no phone calls at the payphones either, though you can clearly make out the steel plates they patched over with drywall when they ripped them out. shouts out to the bright orange cones for actually providing a little bit of color in this otherwise drab and dreary place
this is where you'd have gone between the two buildings at this place. there used to be a big glass walkway you could enter. technically it's still there of course, they just decided to put up a fake wall in front of it so it wasn't as ugly. in fact, I actually think the way they "renovated" this specific little vestibule makes it even uglier than the rest of this building.
I suspect they had to put up the fake wall because they couldn't seem to figure out how chains and a padlock works. the gap between the doors was big enough to drive a Peel P50 through, although in previous years there was a very active lab across the hall with really itchy "call security right now" fingers. I got busted twice by the front desk lady while trying to dash through real quick without alerting anyone lol
if I get stuck in traffic coming out of the city I still sometimes drive here to duck into the restroom. it'd be a whole lot easier just to pull into a Dunkin somewhere but it gives me a good excuse to come visit every once in a while.
an empty office that didn't have its door completely painted over. bunch of garbage strewn everywhere, rubber bands, paper clips, these guys made what looks like a pretty hasty retreat and I don't blame them. the sign indicates that they were last open in early 2017. that's right around the last time I came here and set off the alarms. oooooooops......
other than the overhead hallway signs, this is the only real proof from the inside that this building ever connected to a hospital. unlike the former entrance on the floor below, this was a faculty-only entrance secured with a keypad so nurses and doctors and whoever else could quickly come and go as they needed. I guess they didn't feel the need to put up a fake wall over this one and having opened this door once or twice, I know why - it weighs like 600 pounds and might be the most secure door on the whole entire property. the company that locked this place up managed to do at least one thing right
a shot from the car on my way out. if the city has their way, and god knows they've been trying for years, this place will finally be torn down soon to make way for yet another medical/scientific office building. I could have tried to get inside the main building proper, but all of my sickest infils have been slowly sealed up and I don't have the endurance or willpower to be climbing shit or running up and down rickety fire escapes anymore, especially not alone.
my favorite memory here was the very first time we got inside. we had made it up into the main wards and found the Christmas display, which was still intact, and all the daily calendars still set to April 15, 1999, the last day the hospital was active. while walking around on one of the upper floors, suddenly we heard the elevator ding from behind us. we looked at each other and without saying a word, immediately started sprinting for the emergency exit stairwell. we got turned around a couple times because a handful of emergency doors were padlocked shut but eventually found a door with a pushbar that hadn't been chained up. this door led out to the front parking area where an outpatient facility for geriatrics used to operate. as we came bursting out of that door, a sweet-looking old lady was walking into the outpatient facility. she looked at us, then the door, then back at us, then back at the door.....she looked so confused as to what we were doing walking out of what was blatantly a door to the abandoned areas. I don't think I'll ever forget her face. we made it to the car and shot off around the lake, onto the highway and our escape from security was over as fast as it had started.
anyway if you actually read this thread, thanks. the pictures aren't very good and I'm not sure what made me decide to post this, but here we are. long live UER