WORKING AT
FAIRFIELD HILLS HOSPITAL
IN NEWTOWN, CONNECTICUT.

Part XIIIc

Jerry Haffke Remembers:

So Many People, So Many Memories...

Fairfield Hills Hospital
In February 2009
A Dream Abandoned and Destroyed!

Pictures Were Taken And Sent To Me By James Divita.
For so many of us this will be a sad journey to what once was almost home:

Here is our good old Shelton House in February 2009
as seen from the direction of Norwalk Hall.

The "Blue Colony" diner off Church Hill Road should be familiar
to all former employees at Fairfield Hills. I spent quite a bit of time there with friends after work having coffee and smoking cigarettes.

The old Newtown train-station also off Church Hill Road also hasn't
changed much. I used to live diagonally across from it on Wall Road
in the house which my friend John Kilpatrick had purchased. In fact,
I could see the train-station out of our living-room windows.
 

This dilapidated structure is the former "Power House" at Fairfield Hills Hospital. Carl Atwood, head of our CSEA chapter 99 worked there. FFH was totally self-sufficient by generating it's own electricity.

View of the "Maintenance Shop", where all the trades-people had their
offices and equipment, as seen from the garage and fire station.
Way in back to the right one can see the outlines of Kent House.

I am not sure, but believe this is Miles Hill Road, leading into FFH. This was the back road leading into the hospital or out of it towards the I-84 ramps and Sandy Hook...

Side-view of "Bridgeport Hall" showing the dining room for female patients
to the left of the patient's entrance and the dining room for employees
to the right. In back is Greenwich House. Seen from direction of Canaan House.

Here is Canaan-House which used to be an only female patient building until around 1970, when it became "integrated", like all other buildings, housing male and female patients.

Good old "Norwalk Hall", dormitory for male employees until around
1970 when it too became "integrated" and a complete mess. I lived on
the third (top) floor way in the left corner room facing towards the camera
and Cochran House as well as "Stamford Hall" to the right.
 

Doctor's duplex located on "Washington Circle" or was it called
"Washington Square"??? Located to the right just before Norwalk Hall and the back of Newtown Hall.

More doctor's residences in "Washington Circle". This is also where
Dr. Glickman's son, Ian, initiated me into "Transcendental Meditation"
in around 1970. With a group of others, he instructed us in how to meditate with a mantra which he gave us individually. I have done this meditation, off and on, ever since for 39 years...

Construction all over the place.... to the right is Bridgeport Hall againthis time as seen from Kent House direction, with Greenwich House in the background.

Same again, Bridgeport Hall seen from Kent House direction. This shows
the former male patient entrance to the male dining room which also became integrated--male-female in around 1970.
Background is Greenwich House.

Greenwich House with Litchfield House in background?
Seen from Canaan House direction.

Greenwich House seen from direction of Kent House.
 

Greenwich House front, seen from Bridgeport Hall direction.

On the left is the new "Soccer Academy" which seems to be right in back
of Greenwich House.....and on the right should be Bridgewater House
with view of Fairfield House straight ahead.

More of the new "Soccer Academy" with Fairfield House in background.
I worked on Fairfield 1A as a trainee in 1963 when then President
Kennedy was assassinated--and the world has never been the same since!

Bridgeport Hall--showing the main hospital kitchen part. This is where all
meals for patients and employees were prepared and cooked with the
exception of Cochran House, which had it's own kitchen. Cochran kitchen
was closed in late 1960s or 1970.

I'm lost, don't know which building this is... ?
It has to be either Greenwich House Or Shelton House.

Litchfield House--once an all female patient's building, it became an
adolescent unit, male-female, around 1970.

Yale Laboratory which contained the morgue with autopsy room,
pharmacy (until around 1970 when the pharmacy moved to Cochran
House basement on the C-D side of the building) and blood-lab.
On the right is Canaan House.

Power House is straight ahead, with "Garage" on the left and the
Maintenance Shop on the right. On Sundays when there were no drivers
working, I was often called to drive the ambulance to either Danbury-or
Bridgeport Hospitals. Thus I know this "garage" on the left quite well.

Here is a full view of the garage with repair shop on the right.
To the left, out of view, was the "Fire Station" with a fire truck.
It was a volunteer fire department run by FHH employees.

Bridgeport Hall again with Greenwich House in background, as seen
from Canaan House direction.

Entrance ramp to I-84

I would like to express my deepest
gratitude to Mr. James Divita
for sharing my love of
Fairfield Hills Hospital
by traveling out of his way
to take so many pictures
and sending them to me
as a gift to all former
employees!