Abandoned New Hampshire: Ghosts of our Past by Marie Desrosiers

“With her focus now on New Hampshire, Desrosiers takes us down different roads in this book. Photographs and histories of places with sadly, darker pasts are told in delightfully frightening detail and the photographs just make all of it so much more real. A quick, fun and intriguing read."

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Pros: Desrosiers takes us deeper into the histories of the places she chose to showcase in this book and some of the stories are truly haunting.

Cons: Some of the stories, such as Doc Benton weren't accompanied with many photos but these are photographs of abandoned places falling into ruin, so safety was the main reason I'm sure.

Full Review:

In this addition of Desrosiers photographic journey around abandoned places in New England, she focuses on the state of New Hampshire. Unlike Abandoned Vermont: Down Forgotten Backroads (America Through Time), this book dives deeper into the histories of the places she's visited and some of them are truly unsettling.

Laconia State School, once housing for the developmentally disabled that closed in the 1990s is the first star. It's long, sad history of a severely over-crowded and under-staffed "place for the feeble-minded." was intricately and sympathetically explained by Desrosiers. And with her photographs, we're brought to a sprawling campus of buildings, all forgotten in the New Hampshire woods. Some of the buildings are beautiful and unique while others are stark and institutional.

With each part of the book, we learn a bit more about these forgotten places and their often melancholy pasts. Desrosiers is a stellar photographer, managing to capture the buildings beauty in all seasons and her narrative is informative and fun. Some of the photographs were beautifully haunting and as always, makes you wonder what happened to make someone simply leave everything behind?

Comments

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