33 min
Monument Biography, Episode 5 - Fairfield Hills Psychiatric Hospital Monument Biography
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- Society & Culture
Fairfield Hills Hospital stands as a commanding presence in Newtown, Connecticut, a small New England town that unfortunately came into the national spotlight with the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. This episode takes a deeper look at Newtown’s history through Fairfield Hills, which was built in 1931 as a psychiatric hospital and functioned as such until 1995. It remained unoccupied until 2005, when the town bought the property from the state and tore down several of the hospital’s more derelict buildings and refurbished or rebuilt others. Producer Michael Lally investigates the early years of the hospital, the decade of abandonment that drew urban explorers and ghost hunters, and finally contemporary debates about the town’s “Master Plan” for the site. The story of Fairfield Hills prompts us to consider how a community negotiates and experiences the ghosts of a monument’s troubled past.
Fairfield Hills Hospital stands as a commanding presence in Newtown, Connecticut, a small New England town that unfortunately came into the national spotlight with the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. This episode takes a deeper look at Newtown’s history through Fairfield Hills, which was built in 1931 as a psychiatric hospital and functioned as such until 1995. It remained unoccupied until 2005, when the town bought the property from the state and tore down several of the hospital’s more derelict buildings and refurbished or rebuilt others. Producer Michael Lally investigates the early years of the hospital, the decade of abandonment that drew urban explorers and ghost hunters, and finally contemporary debates about the town’s “Master Plan” for the site. The story of Fairfield Hills prompts us to consider how a community negotiates and experiences the ghosts of a monument’s troubled past.
33 min