My grandfather was a patient from 1939 until 1972 when he was released when he turned 65. He had a complete mental breakdown when he was a young man with six children. Family stopped visiting because he was incoherent, and visits were very upsetting to my grandmother. Just like in the movie a Beautiful Mind he recovered in his 50s but the facility did not contact the family until over a decade later when he aged out. So out of the blue I met him when I was 16 years old for the first time -- very pleasant and nice guy, but passed away when he was 67.
My great grandmother was a patient and after losing her first born child to a tragic accident, they forced her to have another believing it would cure her depression. To make an extremely long story short, that forced child was my grandfather and at four years old he witnessed her gassing herself in the stove of their kitchen. I lived on Carol Ann Drive the first 12 years of my life and my sisters and I spent most of our free time as children playing at the abandoned property - long before it was closed or protected in any way. I didn't learn about the family connection until I was nearly thirty years old and I still walk my dog there weekly...
I had an aunt, grandmother and mother who worked there. Grew up in Newtown my entire life. Even did some childhood volunteering there, though it scared me in some of the buildings. And now…I walk my dog and enjoy the views from up on the highest hill that overlooks the area. This documentary was interesting, though from personal stories, I too think there is more to tell.
Thank you for the feedback! This was a short piece that was used to introduce the topic before my friend and I began our full length documentary. The full length film can be seen using this link if you are interested: www.visionproject.org/documentary_film/dorotheas_tears.htm.
Closing it was not the right decision. My Grandmother worked there in the 80's for a short time and she said it was not a bad place. Once it closed, in the 90's and 2000's my late friend and I walked and took many pictures of the buildings but never went inside. While she believed it was haunted, I was in awe of the architecture of the buildings, though dilapidated and abandoned... I imagined their once beauty. There are so many people mentally ill in the state, and our country and though not everyone needs to be institutionalized, some would benefit for short-term stays, long-term, and be helped not left to just medication which does nothing for some.
I worked there for about 6 yes. Most the Drs were from other countries doing residencies .which left big gaps in the patients care. Shock therapy was awful and useless. It was haunted then. Not only the active wards but also empty wards, the theater area and especially the tunnels. Most all of the aides and nurses treated the patients very well to make up for the poor care by these doctors. Patients were often of varying age and degree of mental problems,as young as 12 and old as late 70s. All mixed on one ward. Violent and non violent. Of all the buildings, the theater was the most haunted and from personal experience, the last place you wanted to be after 10pm was there. It became the hub of activity by the haunted souls . Tunnels were out of Alfred Hitchcock scarey. You never felt alone there.
Are you comfortable with sharing your story and information with me? I am writing a research paper exposing the truth about how people were really treated in hospitals like this
I spent three years there. Ages 14 to 17. 1972 to 1976. Why? Because I took a neighbor's car for a joy ride. I was locked on a ward and given Thorazine 200mgs QID (four times a day) plus 100 more at "Hour Of Sleep". 900 mgs a day. It was a hard three years. Code 99's and being tied down to a bed. I was in Greenwich House 2A when it was set on fire by Joe Gillotte when he took a can of lighter fluid and set the linen closet on fire in 1A. Those were the days. I could tell you some real horror stories..:
i worked there for 23 and a half years. i think it's a shame: 1-closing it, lot of those patients knew nothing at all about the outside world and 2-there were at least 2 employees who i knew that commit suicide because they ended up with no job any where
I would encourage the author of this video to visit with and talk directly with former residents. I've worked in mental health for a long time and even with some folks who came out of there. Talking to folks who never spent a day inside the walls, does not give you the true story.
Actually, we did speak with several former patients who chose to not participate in on-camera interviews due to privacy concerns. Their experiences ran the gamut from being positive to average in the treatment that they received. While there were problems there (just as at any hospital facility), the tendency for many to brand these facilities as "evil" places I think is very inaccurate and misleading. I would argue that closing places like Fairfield Hills and throwing patients into an underfunded and ill-equipped community-based system is more on the "evil" side. I shudder to think what the current administration in Washington is going to do with cuts to community mental health in the upcoming years.
I'm glad to see you are doing the homework. I also ran into a few people who spoke positively about the place, but they are strongly in the minority. If you are doing further work on this topic, I'd encourage you to reach out to some of the community providers funded through DMHAS, there are many success stories of folks once in Fairfield Hills who now have far better lives in the community. I think it would help you view the system a little more evenly.
*y'all are sickeningly brainwashed. You think the "mental health" system made some miraculous leap from LOBOTOMIES to mastery? LMAO, HERE'S A CLUE MORONS: THE PLACE IS SHUT DOWN BECAUSE "MENTAL ILLNESS" AND "MENTAL HEALTH" ARE PURE INDOCTRINATION, BRAINWASH, MIND CONTROL AND TORTURE!* *y'all don't know shit. "mental illness" is the bogus belief system of the Antichrist. If you're somebody who worships "mental illness", I guarantee you think the Antichrist isn't real and doesn't exist. Oh, but it is and it does and it is none other than insane psychiatry itself.* *hey, how did those smart doctors and scientists figure out that lobotomies were GHOULISHLY INSANE AND WRONG? and do you seriously think what exists in today's world is better?! MORONS, WHY CAN'T YOU SEE THE INSANE PEOPLE? THEY CALL THEMSELVES DOCTORS AND SCIENTISTS AND THEY LIKE TO PLAY WITH BRAINS. They evolved from one horror, to the next, to the next. One ghastly tool of destruction to the next and on and on. They STILL electrocute BRAINS and think it isn't as INSANE of a thing to do as lobotomies. Omg, yes it IS just as insane! Hell, they even have ECT in a pill! THAT'S RIGHT, MORONS! THEY PUT ECT IN A PILL. IT'S A "SYMPTOM" (NO, IT IS AN EFFECT) CALLED BRAIN ZAPS! LOOK IT UP AND STOP BEING MORONS! AND STOP WORSHIPING THE ANTICHRIST! AND STOP WORSHIPING MENTAL ILLNESS!* *seriously, y'all have no idea about TRUTH & REALITY. you're INDOCTRINATED and you're BRAINWASHED!* *REPENT!!*
I remember growing up in Newton and drive through the grounds to get to the middle school when my older brother had Soccer practice. Okay his was in the early 80’s . Some patients would be walking freely about and others would be in cuffs . There where many who died their. And I heard there that some of the buildings are very haunted.
Wow the WWII soldier's niece may have known my Grand Uncle Luciano Lanzaro, a WWI hero with Company E, 312th Infantry admitted by 1949. Enroute to France the doughboys faced German Uboat torpedeos and iceburgs. He had grown up on his father's Elm, New Jersey Farm and later gas station along with 9 other siblings. By 1926, They relocated to Stamford, CT selling farm and settling in Cove. How sad to think that he may have suffered post traumatic stress syndrome; and, I hope his last two years with them was peaceful.
Update on FF Hills: I live in Newtown and just recently with the past election in 2020 there was a vote that passed to renovate up to two of the abandoned Fairfield hills buildings to become residential living spaces. It would be privately owned, if planning and zoning approved its renovation. Hopefully those buildings can be used for something better than what they are right now, creepy eyesores.
Nicely shot and edited video but it's only one sided on the story. You should do another video but actually interview people who went there and get the real stories from them.
*all of ct is, it is the home of lucifer himself. Got the word curses tattooed right on his neck, among many other SIGNS OF IDENITY. like, you know, the word BOSS he got tattooed on his evil insane forehead. How the hell does anyone living in this state not know about lucifer? I've been showing him to people for years. Go right ahead and see him for yourself with your own two eyes. My channel is loaded with MY SCREAMS and his pictures. Go ahead. Find out why ct is the heart and home of evil in this country.*
Take a walk in NYC , San Francisco, or LA or any state prison. That should answer your question about choice. But if we got rid of all these old buildings where would all the You Tubers go to get their haunted vids to perpetuate the standard stereotypes about mental illness? SMH
*Yale, that there is the "home" of the skull and bones club, innit. Well, lucifer is the so-called god of said club. He was born & raised in Danbury. Turns 39 human years old next week. Yup, he is real and he exists. Welcome to biblical end times, where the very near future is packed and loaded with much Hell. Rev 18:2, Rev 18:8*
Yeh it was known as the looney bin town until Sandy Hook school, I went to Sandy hook school and got a job at Fairfield hills hospital what ya wanna know?
The hospital is about 5 miles from the school, I grew up there, although I attended a different elementary school. It's nearest to the Reed intermediate school, and the to Newtown High School. My grandmother worked at the hospital as a bookkeeper in the 70s and 80s. A hospital and a kid loaded up on psychotropic drugs doesn't make a bad community.
I was there when they first opened ADAM house. We, the teen reaidents, were tasked with finding a name. EDON House was the adult drug program right next focus in the same building. EDON stood for "End Dependancy On Narcotics." So we came up with "Adolescents Developing And Maturing."
BTU ADAM HOUE ONE ROOM HAD ALOT OF KIDS IN ONE ROOM SOFT BALL THAY DID MED ONE KIDS THAT WERE BEING TESTED SOME WERE PUT THERE WITH NO TESTING COPS PUT SOME KIDS IN THERE THATD,C,,F HAD NO FOSTER HOME SO THANK YOU MY MOM DID GO JAIL AFTER I GOT OUT FOR DOING NOTHING TEST CAME BACK I WAS NOT CRAZZY CT HAD BAD STATE WORKER BAD COPS IN 1985
