Community Corner

Michigan Filmmaker Investigates Northville Psych Hospital

Northville's abandoned psychiatric hospital is one of several across the state.

Northville’s abandoned, crumbling psychiatric hospital is an eyesore and a trespassing hot spot. Rumors and horror stories abound, but there’s another story behind the hospital – the real story.

Independent filmmaker Joshua Pardon is seeking that story, answering questions like who lived and worked there, why it closed and where psychiatric patients are now. 

“This is not some ghost story,” he said. “This is not exploited. This is a historical documentary.”

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He’s searching for these answers about Northville’s psychiatric hospital and other closed state hospitals and hospices for mental illness and epilepsy across Michigan.

“They used to have tens of thousands of employees and tens of thousands of patients,” he said. “What happened to them?”

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His documentary film will feature interviews with people who worked or perhaps had family there. He’s holding interviews at Mill Race Village July 23 and 24. Pardon, of Ann Arbor, has been filming throughout the state for about a year, visiting Ionia, Kalamazoo, Traverse City, Pontiac, Coldwater and Mount Pleasant.

Starting in the late 1800s, Michigan built several state hospitals for the mentally ill and the developmentally disabled, he said. 

“There are perhaps eight to 10 big ones, and a couple dozen smaller ones throughout the state,” he said.

Changes in treatment along with new drugs and therapies around the mid-to-late 1900s changed attitudes about institutionalization and many of these hospitals closed. Pardon's research includes uncovering the reasons why they closed, such as to stop separating patients from society. 

“To my knowledge no one has taken up this project,” he said.

His crew is small, about two to four people, and it’s his first independent project, although he has been an editor and director for feature length documentaries. 

He just completed the first year of his work on this film, which he said will take four to five years, and expects to finish the film in 2016. Pardon has been and will be interviewing historians, mental health professionals, government representatives, former state hospital workers and those currently receiving mental health treatment.

The on-camera interviews at Mill Race Village will be by appointment only. If anyone would like to speak to Pardon for his film, contact him at 734-353-9575 or joshuapardon@hotmail.com. He is also interested in seeing photographs and other memorabilia from the hospital. Those with stories about any other state hospitals and facilities such as the Plymouth State Home and Training School are also welcome to inquire about an on-camera interview session. 


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