Kings Park Psychiatric Center
[1] It operated from 1885 until 1996, when the State of New York closed the facility, releasing its few remaining patients or transferring them to the still-operational Pilgrim Psychiatric Center.
The hospital was revolutionary at the time in the sense that it was a departure from the asylums of folklore, which were overcrowded places where gross human rights abuses often occurred.
The state eventually built the hospital into a self-sufficient community that not only grew its own food, but also generated its own heat and electricity, had its own Long Island Rail Road spur and housed its staff on-site.
By the time Kings Park reached its peak patient population, the old "rest and relaxation" philosophy surrounding farming had been succeeded by more invasive techniques of pre-frontal lobotomies and electroshock therapy.
In addition, activists worked in legal suits through the 1970s to reduce the patient population in major institutions, arguing that people could better be supported in smaller community centers.
In response to the declining patient population, the New York State Office of Mental Health developed plans to close Kings Park as well as another Long Island asylum, the Central Islip Psychiatric Center, in the early 1990s.
The plans called for Kings Park and Central Islip to close, and the remaining patients from both facilities to be transferred to the still-operational Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, or be discharged.
Other areas include buried ash containing unknown materials from the hospital's power generation facilities and asbestos in steam tunnels and remaining buildings.
These problems created a fear in the surrounding community that developers will have no choice but to build high-density housing to offset the environmental clean-up costs and return a profit.
[citation needed] Since the hospital closed its doors in 1996, trespassing has become a large problem at KPPC, as enthusiasts of the paranormal, amateur writers, and photographer hobbyists visit the grounds.
[2][3] King's Park Psychiatric Center, A Documentation is an anonymously run website including video images of the buildings' vandalized interiors.
Today, the sprawling area that once housed the Kings Park Psychiatric Center stands as a testament to a forgotten era.
Building 93 of the psychiatric center was a primary location in the 2010 feature film Peripheral Vision, a thriller from filmmaker Michael D. D'Andrea.
Kings Park: Stories from an American Mental Institution, a documentary by former patient Lucy Winer about the history and legacy of the facility, was released on DVD and theatrically in 2013.
