Worcester State Hospital
The old Worcester Insane Asylum, the first state-funded institution of its kind in the country, opened in 1833. When the hospital began to show signs of overcrowding, a new hospital design was produced and, in 1870, construction began on the new Kirkbride complex. In 1991, a massive fire engulfed the majority of the building and the damaged areas were bulldozed. Years later in March of 2006, the Boston Globe announced that the Massachusetts Department of Health had proposed its first new psychiatric hospital in almost 50 years. The new facility would be built on the site of the Worcester State Hospital and would be one of the costliest building projects in Massachusetts history at over $300 million.
