Thursday, February 11, 2010

Real estate: Greetings from Shutter Island.



Though set on an isolated, God forsaken island off the coast of Massachusetts, much of Shutter Island was filmed in the decidedly in-land town of Medfield, population 12,836. This nice little burg attracted director Martin Scorsese's attention because it's home to the Medfield State Hospital - a massive (58 buildings on 900 acres) and picturesque mental institution built in the late 19th century and closed in 1994. At its peak, the asylum held more than 2,000 patients - about a sixth of the population of modern Medfield.

It's a popular stop for urban explorers. To see Shutter Island landlocked and Leo free, check out the following galleries:

Abandoned But Not Forgotten

Abandoned Places

There's a nice tour of the hospital's graveyard at Grave Addiction.

You can also get a bird's eye view of the hospital from Google maps.

5 comments:

Sasquatchan said...

Urban explorers.. Such an interesting group of folks, always with interesting pages.. THe ones that just post pictures aren't as good as ones that can offer up some of the historical info as well.

Did you ever do the steam tunnels or crypts at college ?

Chris 'Frog Queen' Davis said...

Great post...I just love abandoned places. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers!

CRwM said...

Sassy,

Never saw the crypts, but I explored several of the old service tunnels.

CRwM said...

Your Majesty,

I'm glad you dig. This is just a taste of what's out there. A little Google-fu and you'll find more Medfield resources - including an old post about an open casting call for inmates to repopulate the hospital for Scorsese's shoot.

zoe said...

creepy. i love this author's books, so i'm really curious about the movie. i stumbled on the preview, and it looks terrifying. of course, i'm not a professional horror-watcher.

thanks for posting these links! i'm off to explore...