Back in the late 1800s officials in Brooklyn needed to ease the overcrowding at its mental health facilities so they traveled east on Long Island, stopping at a place called Indian Head and set up their newest asylum on the idyllic grounds. The Kings County Asylum was built as a farm colony, where therapy was administered by having patients work the grounds, growing food and tending livestock. For over 100 years, the asylum treated patients until it was shuttered in 1996. No stranger to controversy, the psychiatric center continued to garner attention even after it closed as development of the site was debated and trespassers explored the ruins of the former hospital buildings.
Below we assembled some historical facts about the Kings Park Psychiatric Center.
Beginnings
- Kings Park Psychiatric Center was built in 1885
- It was conceived and constructed by Kings County (Brooklyn) to ease overcrowded at hospitals there
- It was an extension of the Kings County Lunatic Asylum in Flatbush, Brooklyn
- The hospital was built on an 800-acre site on the shores of the Long Island Sound
- It was originally called Kings County Asylum
- In 1895, New York State took control of the asylum
- It was renamed Kings Park State Hospital
- The area used to be known as Indian Head but took on the name Kings Park from the hospital
- So the hamlet of Kings Park was named for a Brooklyn asylum
- At first, the hospital was a farm colony and patients worked the fields
- Farming was used as therapy at the time to treat psychiatric patients
- Eventually it became known as Kings Park Psychiatric Center (KPPC)
- According to Atlas Obscura, by 1900 the facility housed 2,697 patients and 454 staff members making the population larger than the entire population of the town of Smithtown at the time
- The hospital employed many people on Long Island and NYC and helped grow the community surrounding it
Growth
- By the 1930s, more buildings were constructed at the hospital as the patient population rose
- The hospital had its own farmland, cow barn, piggery, butcher shop, tailor, morgue, and power plant
- In 1954, the patient census at Kings Park topped 9,303
- The sprawling campus eventually contained over 150 buildings for various purposes
- KPPC became like a self-contained city with power plants, maintenances buildings, and nurses’ dormitories
- KPPC even had its own railroad spur
- There were two marinas on the grounds, one private and the other exclusively for the use of hospital employees and their families
Building 93
- The iconic structure on the Kings Park grounds is known as Building 93
- It was constructed in 1939 in the neoclassical style
- Building 93 was a Works Progress Administration project during the Great Depression
- It was 13 stories tall
- It was used as an infirmary for geriatric patients, as well as for patients with chronic physical ailments
- It housed over 1,200 patients
- Boaters on the Long Island Sound use the building as a landmark
Controversy
- Early on in 1893, a state report said that “the buildings were unsuitable and unhygienic, facilities inadequate, clothing insufficient and of poor quality, food often unfit for human consumption”
- In the 1950s prefrontal lobotomies and electroshock therapy were performed there as treatment
- The rise of the use of Thorazine helped to end these brutal medical practices
- In 1981, the hospital briefly lost its accreditation due to staff shortages, kept inadequate records of its patients, and did not have enough fire escapes
- At the time it had 2,400 patients
Media
- Lucy Winer, a former patient at Kings Park made a documentary about her experiences at the facility
- Winer was committed to KPPC in 1967 after she tried to commit suicide
- The filmmaker sought out other former patients, family members, and staff, to share their accounts of KPPC
- A YouTube video explores the inside of KPPC after it closed:
- Another video shows drone footage of two young men on top of Building 93
- Still another documentary on YouTube called "Kings Park: The Abandoned City" explores the inside of the facility’s buildings
Decline, Closing, & Redevelopment Plans
- As new treatment became available the asylum population dwindled
- Building began to be demolished in the 1960s and 1970s
- In 1975 there were 70 buildings left
- In 1982 proposals to make use of the underutilized buildings met with opposition including a Suffolk County plan to use the grounds as emergency housing for welfare families, and state plans to move alcoholism treatment and forensic units there
- It was reported in a New York Times article in 1982 that only 14 buildings were in use that year for the hospital treating about 2,000 patients
- At the time, 60% of patients were over the age of 65 and had been at the hospital for many years
- By 1993, the hospital had 1,000 patients, well below its peak
- A plan was developed to consolidate KPPC plus two other hospitals on Long Island
- The hospital closed its doors in 1996
- Any remaining patients were transferred to Pilgrim Psychiatric Center
- The psychiatric center was in operation for 111 years
- Immediately, conservationists and officials began calling for the property to be preserved as parkland
- Nissequogue River State Park was opened in 2000 on a waterfront portion of the KPPC
- The park was first established on a 153-acre parcel of the property
- In 2007, 368 acres of the hospital property were added to Nissequogue River State Park
- Part of that acreage included the hospital buildings that needed to be demolished and removed
- Demolition of the abandoned buildings has been slow and complicated by the presence of asbestos in the structures
- 90 acres of the property were set aside for commercial development at the time
- About 2.5 acres were set aside for use by the Kings Park Fire District
- Over the years, developers have proposed building townhouses and condominiums there
- According to Long Island Business News, a proposed NYS bill in 2019 would require the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to create a plan to “present a series of preferred alternatives for the future development and use” of the park
- Trespassing, vandalism, and graffiti have become a problem within the vacant buildings since it closed
- People think that KPPC is the most haunted place on Long Island
- Amatuer ghost hunters frequently trespass on the grounds
- Newsday reports that security around KPPC is tightened around Halloween to prevent trespassers who want to explore the site
- The number of trespassers was as high as 800 some years
- It is illegal to enter the buildings at KPPC and the grounds are patrolled by the New York State Park Police
- State Parks officials say the buildings are extremely dangerous with asbestos, lead paint, broken glass, and structures that could collapse at any time
- Police have rescued people who got locked in the rooms or lost in tunnels underneath the hospital
- Park officials have maps of the underground tunnels