Letchworth Village was a residential institution located in Rockland County, New York, in the hamlet of Thiells built for the physically and mentally disabled of all ages, from the newborn to the elderly.

It was named for William Pryor Letchworth, who espoused reform in the treatment and care of the insane, epileptics, and poor children.

Separate living and training facilities for children, able-bodied adults, and the infirm were not to exceed two stories or house over 70 inmates.

It was a farming village of nearly four square miles, In the words of the 1927 Rockland County Red Book, "subdivided as far as possible in order to avoid the tendency toward institutionalism."

The village's fieldstone, neoclassic buildings consisted of small dormitories, a hospital, dining halls, and housing for the staff.

Families were allowed to erect headstones at their own expense, but as of this edit in August 2021, most of the graves are still marked only by the numbered steel markers.

On the contrary, some of the graves, especially those of children, are regularly visited by members of the community who leave stones, flowers, or other items in remembrance of the deceased.

The last of these categories is the one that could not be trained, Dr. Little said, and so they should not be taken into Letchworth Village, because they were unable to "benefit the state" by doing the various jobs that were assigned to the male patients, included loading thousands of tons of coal into storage facilities, building roads, and farming acres of land.

Barely ten years after being constructed, Letchworth's buildings were already overpopulated, 70 beds being crammed into the tiny dormitories.

Quoting a spokesman for the State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, Corcoran confirmed that families abandoned their relatives there.

United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy previously had toured the Willowbrook facility in 1965 and called it a "snake pit.

"[10] Kennedy was not allowed to take cameras into the buildings, however, so the average citizen had no idea how bad the conditions inside Willowbrook actually were.

While he found that a great deal of progress had been made in the caring for, and training of, disabled people in California, he saw the situation in New York's facilities as backward and cruel.

The documentary showed the residents of Willowbrook and Letchworth Village, many of them children, living in awful, dirty and overcrowded conditions, with a lack of clothing, bathing, and attention to their most basic needs.

Rivera saw the overcrowding and neglect as a direct result of inadequate funding and the ignorant attitudes in wider society.

Opposition was strong on the parts of many local residents - who attended Town Hall Meetings to express their fears.

Letchworth had already initiated learning programs that were designed to train individuals in the skills with hopes of making their transitions easier.

[6] The Town of Stony Point is interested in redeveloping part of the town-owned former Letchworth Village property, currently called the Patriot Hills Complex.

The 159-acre complex off Willow Grove Road includes the Patriot Hills Golf Course and the Veterans Memorial Park.

The town's interest is to develop the 18-acre portion of the property that houses eight remaining buildings that were built between 1929 and 1952 for the Letchworth Village Developmental Center campus.

According to the town's 20-page Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) document, respondents may or may not include the existing buildings in their proposals.

In 2009, the town hired a developmental consultant to look for a potential developer, and a plan to build a stadium with hotels, a conference center and shopping mall was proposed.