There are many abandoned buildings in each borough of New York. Each has its own fascinating history. One of them is the forgotten and abandoned Kings Park Psychiatric Center on Long Island. Citizens frequently refer to the ruins of this institution as an ideal location for filming horror films. The facility expanded after its inception and served a huge number of patients. However, there came a point when its doors were closed and it was forgotten. Learn more about how the Kings Park asylum for the mentally ill was established and other interesting facts at queens-future.
History of creation
In 1880, the Kings County Asylum in Flatbush, Brooklyn, became overcrowded. Unfortunately, the government did not allocate funds for its development. The shelter’s chief physician, John Shaw, paid his own money for 870 acres of land in Kings Park, Long Island, on which he built a 13-story structure. He intended to build a new shelter for the mentally ill in a more ecological place, thereby reducing the load on the hospital in Brooklyn.
The doctor believed that changing the surroundings would improve patient care. As a result, three small structures were built, which housed 30 women and 20 men.
As part of occupational therapy, patients worked on the property, clearing sand keeping the yard clean, and growing vegetables and fruits.
A few years after the asylum opened, the number of patients began to significantly increase. Then they built additional structures on the property and installed a steam station and a sewer system.
Already in 1930, as the number of patients grew, many new structures were constructed on the territory of the hospital. At that time, the hospital featured a meat shop, a cowshed, a pigsty, a morgue, and a power plant.
As a result, Kings Park became an independent institution, funded by the Works Progress Administration.
Extreme treatment of the mentally ill in Kings Park
Following World War II, the facility began using shock therapy to treat patients. Additionally, a lobotomy was performed. Doctors believed that shock therapy improved mood in people with epilepsy and reduced the frequency of seizures.
Lobotomy was a brutal form of treatment that belonged to surgical operations. During this procedure, a metal plate was inserted through the eye socket and into the patient’s cranial cavity for six months. Doctors at the time thought that such a procedure helped break the neural connections between the punctured cortex and the rest of the brain. As a result, the number of seizures decreased in patients, and they were more tranquil.
Following the procedure, the patients became passive and compliant. In fact, it was an unreliable and dangerous operation because no one knew if a person would live or die as a result of such intervention.
It is worth noting that the patient who was admitted to this facility had no right to refuse such treatment.
With the development of antipsychotic drugs in 1950, the old methods of treatment were no longer effective.
Development and demise of the institution
The psychiatric institution reached its peak development in 1954. At the time, the institution was seeing 9,000 patients. More than 100 new structures were built on the asylum’s grounds, including power plants, hospital staff housing, recreation facilities, and barns.
In 1970, there was a decrease in public hospitals. The patients were then moved to group homes and other hospitals. The Kings Park Psychiatric Center formally closed in 1996. The territory of the former hospital became the site of Nissequogue River State Park. As of 2022, there are 30 structures from the original center remaining. All of them are unoccupied. Windows were broken by vandals, and furniture and equipment were taken by thieves.
