Traverse City's Asylum

The next two paragraphs are a reasonably accurate portrayal of Kalamazoo's attitudes, as I recall them. They do not reflect my views--and certainly don't reflect the views of every Kalamazooan. Please don't expect me to defend them. Thanks.

I grew up in Kalamazoo, and don't recall ever hearing a good word about our State Hospital. The town's view of the place, at least when I was young, was not unlike Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, except we didn't cut the inmates any slack. In Kalamazoo's mental image of the place, the asylum was inhabited by bad people who were being tortured by other bad people. No matter that we likely knew some of the staff, or that we may have had friends who'd been patients. The place was irredeemable, and we were pleased to see it dwindle over the course of the 1970s. The only buildings we made concerted efforts to save were the attractive water tower and the cute little gothic gatehouse.

Moving the treatment focus into the community was probably a good thing for many of the patients. But for the city it was not entirely a blessing. We were still that State Hospital town, and now we had a new group of poor folks sharing the town's resources. At the bus stops the hostility could be palpable.

Traverse City's asylum apparently didn't generate so many bad vibes. To all appearances, the town's always treated the campus as a big park, with magnificent buildings. I'm sure people expressed concerns and prejudices that were not unlike Kalamazoo's, but those don't seem to have dominated the social landscape. And TC's proud of their asylum, and making a serious effort to preserve it.

Asylum's a good word, by the way. It expresses an aspiration that Regional Psychiatric Hospital (a later name for both complexes) doesn't even attempt. I imagine both hospitals sometimes--perhaps routinely--achieved that goal.