Vision, perspective, and the old Traverse City State Hospital

Ray Minervini has a vision of what the former Traverse City State Hospital could become. He’s been working on realizing that vision for a decade, and has made tremendous progress. His Village at Grand Traverse Commons includes condominiums and rental apartments, professional office space, and the Mercato, a collection of fine shops, dining and entertainment venues at the former Building 50. I love going to to Gallery Fifty and Trattoria Stella. The property is large, though, and a lot remains to be done.

Babs Young writes: I had an opportunity to tour the Traverse City Regional Psychiatric Hospital or Northern Michigan Asylum which was established in 1885. It functioned well into the 1950’s. The Minervini Group began renovating this complex in the early 2000’s. We were given this special tour by Ray Minervini. Obviously the section we toured has not been renovated. 

Babs goes on to say that you can learn more about the old hospital and Dr. Munson, its superintendent from 1885 to 1924, and how he used “beauty as therapy” in this Wikipedia article.  During his long tenure, Dr. Munson turned the hospital grounds into an arboretum filled with carefully chosen trees and peaceful pathways.  He believed that purposeful work is good therapy, so patients grew their own food, tended dairy cows at the barns on the property, and became a virtually self-sufficient community.  By all accounts, the hospital was an extraordinarily progressive institution in its day.

In spite of all that, the Old Hospital is generally perceived to be A Spooky Place. The unrenovated space has been used by filmmakers and by kids daring each other and by writers looking for an “eerie” setting. Nobody ever sets a love story there.  Maybe someone should.  A little change of perspective about the Old Hospital–and about mental illness–would do us all a world of good.

So what does that photo say to you?  Knowing what you know about the place, does it speak of despair or possibilities?