Massachusetts -- or Mass, as locals call it -- holds 312 documented abandoned places on the Urbex Maps atlas, a count shaped by the state's paradoxical combination of extraordinary historical wealth and extraordinary institutional investment. Massachusetts was the industrial heartland of America in the 19th century: the textile mills of the Merrimack Valley, the precision manufacturing of the Connecticut River corridor, the shoe factories of Brockton and Lynn built enormous wealth that was partly channeled into a state infrastructure of hospitals, asylums, schools, and charitable institutions that was among the most extensive in the country. When both the industrial economy and the institutional model collapsed in the late 20th century, they left behind a landscape of extraordinary abandoned complexity.
The signature Massachusetts abandoned places are state hospital campuses: Danvers State Hospital (the original Kirkbride building that may have inspired H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham Asylum), Medfield State Hospital (used as a film location for Shutter Island), Westborough State Hospital, and Belchertown State School form a cluster of institutional ruins within an hour of Boston. These campuses are not just architecturally significant -- they are the physical evidence of how Massachusetts managed its most vulnerable residents through a century of institutional care, and their abandonment documents the shift from that model to community-based care.
This guide covers 10 of the most significant abandoned places in Massachusetts, with free GPS coordinates on the Urbex Maps interactive atlas, verified YouTube embeds, and factual historical context.
Free urbex GPS: how Urbex Maps works
Every spot in this guide has a free GPS pin on the Urbex Maps interactive atlas. No account required -- just coordinates with satellite imagery and access notes. The full Massachusetts database has 312 documented locations, covering institutional campuses, industrial ruins, coastal fortifications, and abandoned villages.
1. Danvers State Hospital, Danvers
Danvers State Hospital is the most mythologized abandoned asylum in America -- a Victorian Gothic Kirkbride building designed by Nathaniel Bradlee and opened in 1878 on a hill overlooking Danvers that has been linked to the work of H.P. Lovecraft, specifically to the fictional Arkham Asylum of his Cthulhu Mythos. Lovecraft set several stories in "Arkham," a fictional city widely believed to be based on Salem and Danvers; the hilltop Gothic asylum with its bat-wing plan and limestone towers is visually consistent with what Lovecraft's descriptions evoke.
The hospital was built as the State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers, following the Kirkbride Plan developed by Philadelphia psychiatrist Thomas Kirkbride: a central administration building flanked by long patient wings that angled progressively back, creating the distinctive "bat wing" footprint visible from above. The building was designed to house 450 patients; by the mid-20th century it held over 2,000. The facility closed in 1992.
The Danvers site was purchased by a developer and most of the original Kirkbride building was demolished in 2006, with only the central administration block and the towers preserved and incorporated into a condominium complex called "Avalon Danvers." The demolition of the wings was controversial among preservationists, and the surviving portion -- the Gothic central block rising above the suburban landscape -- is a fragment of what had been one of the most complete Kirkbride complexes in New England.
2. Medfield State Hospital, Medfield
Medfield State Hospital in Norfolk County is one of the best-preserved abandoned psychiatric campuses in New England -- a 471-acre campus with over 50 buildings representing a century of state institutional architecture, from the original 1892 structures through 20th-century additions. The hospital was established as the Medfield Insane Asylum and operated until 2003, making it one of the longest-operating state hospitals in Massachusetts.
Medfield is best known to contemporary audiences as a filming location for Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (2010), which used the Medfield campus to represent the fictional Ashecliffe Hospital. The photogenic decay of the brick buildings, the institutional scale, and the New England woodland setting created exactly the visual atmosphere the film required.
The Town of Medfield acquired the property and has been developing it for mixed-use redevelopment -- a project called "Medfield State Hospital Redevelopment" that will incorporate new residential development with adaptive reuse of the historic buildings. Construction has begun on portions of the site. The combination of Shutter Island associations, architectural significance, and a genuine long-term redevelopment plan makes Medfield the most actively transitioning of the major Massachusetts abandoned hospitals.
3. Fernald State School, Waltham
The Walter E. Fernald State School in Waltham is the oldest public residential facility for people with intellectual disabilities in the Western Hemisphere -- founded in 1848 as the "Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Youth" by Samuel Gridley Howe, a reformer who believed that intellectual disability was a form of arrested development that could be addressed through education and training.
Fernald's most notorious modern-era scandal was the MIT/Quaker Oats radiation experiments conducted from 1946 to 1953, in which researchers fed radioactive iron and calcium to intellectually disabled boys at the institution to study nutrient absorption -- without the boys' or their families' full informed consent. The experiments came to public attention in a 1994 Boston Globe investigation. Massachusetts subsequently compensated the surviving subjects.
The Fernald campus in Waltham -- 196 acres of buildings and grounds adjacent to the Charles River -- has been largely vacant since the state closed it as a residential institution in 2014. The state has been planning for redevelopment, with proposals including housing, research facilities, and preservation of the most historic structures.
4. Westborough State Hospital, Westborough
Westborough State Hospital in Worcester County was one of the oldest continuously operating psychiatric hospitals in Massachusetts -- established as the State Lunatic Hospital at Westborough in 1884 and operating for over a century until closing in 2010. The hospital served patients from Worcester County and beyond across multiple generations of psychiatric practice.
The Westborough campus includes buildings from multiple construction periods: original Victorian-era brick structures, early 20th-century additions in a Colonial Revival style, and mid-20th century utilitarian buildings. The older structures have the character typical of Massachusetts state hospital construction -- substantial brick, tall windows, institutional scale.
The hospital closed in 2010 and the property was transferred to the state's Division of Capital Asset Management. As of 2026, the campus remains largely vacant and deteriorating. The site is on a commercially valuable parcel in the growing MetroWest corridor, but the cost of asbestos remediation and building stabilization has complicated development proposals.
5. Fort Revere, Hull
Fort Revere on Telegraph Hill in Hull is a colonial-era fortification with a history stretching back to the Revolutionary War -- the high point of the Nantasket Peninsula that commands views over Boston Harbor. The fortification was originally called "Fort Independence" and was used by the Continental Army during the Siege of Boston in 1775-76. Paul Revere's artillery regiment occupied the position at one point, which is the source of the later name.
The fort was updated repeatedly through the 19th century and was significantly rebuilt during the Spanish-American War era when the Army upgraded Boston Harbor's coastal defenses. The Endicott-era concrete battery construction installed 6-inch disappearing gun carriages and supporting infrastructure that are still visible in the park.
Fort Revere Park is publicly accessible as a Hull municipal park; the town maintains the grounds and has installed interpretive signage. The concrete battery structures, the foundation walls of the colonial-era fortification, and the panoramic views over Boston Harbor from the 100-foot summit create an experience that combines military history with one of the best harbor vistas on the South Shore.
6. Dogtown (Abandoned Village), Gloucester
Dogtown on Cape Ann in Gloucester is the most famous abandoned colonial village in New England -- a settlement that was established in the late 17th century, flourished briefly, and was completely abandoned by the 1830s, leaving behind stone-walled cellar holes, the fragments of a road system, and a scatter of glacially deposited boulders across a landscape of scrub oak and bog that the 19th-century painter Marsden Hartley made famous in a series of 1931 paintings. The boulders were carved with motivational phrases in the 1920s by Roger Babson, a financier who hired unemployed stonecutters to inscribe them with messages like "BE ON TIME" and "NEVER TRY NEVER WIN."
Dogtown was settled by English colonists in the 1640s as an inland retreat from the coast -- the original Cape Ann settlements were vulnerable to pirate raids. The village grew to perhaps 100 families before declining as coastal security improved and maritime commerce made the shore more attractive. The last permanent resident reportedly died in 1830.
The Dogtown Common is managed as an open space preserve accessible via a trail network from multiple Cape Ann trailheads. The cellar holes, foundation walls, and the Babson Boulder inscriptions are all visible along the trails.
7. Boston Metropolitan Sewerage Pumping Station, Dorchester
The Calf Pasture Pumping Station on Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester is the most architecturally significant abandoned industrial building on the Boston waterfront -- a Romanesque Revival brick pumping station built in 1883 as part of the Boston Metropolitan Sewerage Commission's first major infrastructure project. The station was designed by Joseph Stearns and represents the high-Victorian approach to public infrastructure: functional industrial buildings dressed in architectural ornament that communicated civic pride and institutional permanence.
The pumping station operated the enormous steam pumps that moved sewage from the South Boston drainage district to the treatment facilities. As the sewerage system was expanded and upgraded through the 20th century, the 1883 building was eventually taken out of active service. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) owns the building.
The Calf Pasture Pumping Station is visible from Morrissey Boulevard and is accessible as part of the Tenean Beach area of the Dorchester waterfront. The Romanesque brick exterior -- with its arched windows, corbeled cornices, and corner tower -- is distinctive in the industrial landscape along the Neponset River estuary.
8. Belchertown State School, Belchertown
Belchertown State School in Hampshire County opened in 1922 and operated for 70 years as a residential institution for people with intellectual disabilities -- a facility that became, by the 1970s, a national symbol of institutional abuse and the catalyst for significant Massachusetts disability rights legislation.
By the mid-1970s, Belchertown had deteriorated into a facility documented by investigative journalists, advocates, and eventually courts as one of the most abusive state institutions in Massachusetts. The 1972 Ricci v. Okin federal lawsuit described conditions of severe neglect, physical abuse, overcrowding, and inadequate medical care in explicit detail that shocked public opinion. The resulting consent decree required Massachusetts to dramatically reduce the institutional population -- a process that eventually led to the school's closure in 1992.
The Belchertown campus of approximately 25 buildings on a 900-acre rural Hampshire County property has been largely vacant since closure. The town of Belchertown has been developing portions of the campus for mixed-use purposes.
9. Pontoosuc Woolen Mill, Pittsfield
The Pontoosuc Woolen Mill in Pittsfield is one of the most significant surviving industrial ruins in the Berkshires -- a 19th-century woolen textile mill on the Housatonic River that represents the manufacturing economy that made the Berkshires a significant industrial region. The Pontoosuc Woolen Company was established in 1801 and became one of the largest woolen manufacturers in Massachusetts.
The mill complex grew through the 19th century as the company added machinery buildings, a dye house, a picker house, and the support infrastructure of a full-scale textile operation. The brick mill buildings in their characteristic New England industrial style -- multi-story rectangular structures with large windows and internal timber framing -- defined the industrial character of Pittsfield's river corridor.
Pittsfield's industrial history includes a later chapter that overshadowed the woolen mill era: the General Electric transformer plant that operated from 1903 and contaminated the Housatonic River with PCBs, creating one of the largest Superfund sites in New England. The Pontoosuc Mill represents the earlier, pre-electrical manufacturing era before GE transformed the city.
10. Quincy Quarries, Quincy
The Quincy Quarries in Quincy are the oldest industrial quarry site in America and the source of the granite that built some of the most significant structures in early American history -- the Bunker Hill Monument (1843) and dozens of other 19th-century federal buildings. Quincy granite -- a hard, fine-grained gray granite -- was prized for monumental construction from the 1820s onward.
The quarries are also notable as the site of the Granite Railway (1826), the first commercial railroad in the United States -- a horse-drawn tramway built to move cut granite from the quarry to the waterfront. The railway predated all steam-powered American railroads by several years.
Quarrying at Quincy declined through the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the granite seams were exhausted. The quarry pits became notorious as swimming and cliff-diving sites, and the drowning deaths of dozens of swimmers led the Metropolitan District Commission to fill the quarries with construction debris beginning in the 1960s. The Quincy Quarries Reservation is now publicly accessible for hiking and rock climbing on the quarry walls.
FAQ
Is Danvers State Hospital accessible?
The original Kirkbride building was largely demolished in 2006 and replaced by the "Avalon Danvers" condominium complex. The central Gothic administration block and towers were preserved and incorporated into the development. The remaining historic portion is visible from the public road but is private residential property.
Can you visit Medfield State Hospital?
The town of Medfield is actively redeveloping the campus. Portions of the property are accessible during the development process; check the Medfield State Hospital Redevelopment project's website for current access policies. The campus was used as a filming location for Shutter Island (2010).
Is Dogtown accessible?
Yes. The Dogtown Common is publicly accessible via a trail network from multiple Cape Ann trailheads. The cellar holes and Babson Boulder inscriptions are visible along the trails. Dogs are permitted off-leash in parts of the preserve.
What happened to Belchertown State School?
The school closed in 1992 following decades of documented abuse and the Ricci v. Okin federal lawsuit. The campus is being partially redeveloped by the town of Belchertown. Some buildings have been adaptively reused; others remain vacant.
Are the Quincy Quarries open for climbing?
Yes. The Quincy Quarries Reservation is managed by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation and is open for hiking and rock climbing. The quarry walls are a popular climbing area for the Boston metropolitan region. Swimming in the flooded quarry pits has been prohibited since multiple drowning deaths.
Is Fort Revere free to visit?
Yes. Fort Revere Park is a Hull municipal park and is free and open to the public. The concrete battery structures from the Spanish-American War era are accessible, and the panoramic views over Boston Harbor are exceptional.
Conclusion
Massachusetts's 312 documented abandoned places concentrate some of the most architecturally and historically significant institutional ruins in America -- the physical evidence of a century of ambitious state mental health policy, alongside colonial village abandonments, industrial ruins, and coastal fortifications. Free GPS coordinates for all 10 sites are on the interactive atlas.
Explore more abandoned places in the US
- ●Abandoned Places in Connecticut: 10 Iconic Urbex Spots
- ●Abandoned Places in New York: 10 Iconic Urbex Spots
- ●Abandoned Places in Pennsylvania: 10 Iconic Urbex Spots
- ●Abandoned Places in West Virginia: 10 Iconic Urbex Spots
- ●Ghost Towns USA: 20 Iconic Places
- ●Abandoned Places USA: 50 States, 50 Iconic Urbex Spots
