The Central Islip Psychiatric Center, formerly State Hospital for the Insane, was a state psychiatric hospital in Central Islip, New York, United States from 1889 until 1996.
The center was one of the four major hospital "farms" in central Long Island to house the sick from New York City; the others were Kings Park, Pilgrim State Hospital, and Edgewood State Hospital. In 1955 it housed 10,000 patients, making it the second largest psychiatric hospital in the United States next to Pilgrim State Hospital, which was the largest psychiatric institution ever to exist in the United States. [1]
It opened in 1889 to house the sick from Manhattan in what was called at the time the New Colony. [2] Kings County Farm Colony opened in the fall of 1886 to house those from Brooklyn. Pilgrim opened in 1931 and Edgewood in 1946 (which acted as Pilgrim's Tubercular Division).
The state bought the land for US$25 per acre.
49 male and 40 female patients were admitted in 1889 for "O&O" (Occupation and Oxygen) and "R&R" (Rest and Relaxation) at a working farm. Patients cleared the land, constructed buildings, made the furniture and mattresses, sewed their clothing, grew crops and raised dairy cattle, pigs and chickens. [3]
After New York State bought it, it was renamed the Manhattan State Hospital for the Insane (although the "for the Insane" portion was frequently not included in articles). [4]
The initial buildings grew to be a nearly mile-long interconnected series of buildings called the "string of pearls."
Until the Great Depression patients would arrive by a special hospital train with bars on the windows on a siding off the Long Island Rail Road.
More modern buildings were arranged closer together in the Sunburst building.
The hospital was renamed the Central Islip State Hospital and finally the Central Islip Psychiatric Center.
It closed on October 10, 1996 when the last patients were transferred to the Pilgrim Psychiatric Center.
Most of the buildings, including the String of Pearls, have been demolished. The 1953 power plant was torn down in 2006, the Corcoran treatment building was torn down in 2008. [4]
As the hospital was being phased out, part of its grounds were used for Suffolk County, New York to locate its offices in the Cohalan County Court Complex in 1992.
The New York Institute of Technology has the biggest collection of buildings in the Sunburst Building. The Town Center at Central Islip shopping center covers much of it. Islip Town Fire Museum, Fairfield Properties Ballpark, and the Alfonse M. D'Amato United States Courthouse are also on the land.
Central Islip is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) within the Town of Islip in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population was 34,450 at the 2010 census.
The Kings Park Psychiatric Center, known by Kings Park locals as "The Psych Center", is a former state-run psychiatric hospital located in Kings Park, New York. 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 Kirkbride Plan was a system of mental asylum design advocated by American psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride (1809–1883) in the mid-19th century. The asylums built in the Kirkbride design, often referred to as Kirkbride Buildings, were constructed during the mid-to-late-19th century in the United States.
The Manhattan Psychiatric Center is a New York-state run psychiatric hospital on Wards Island in New York City. As of 2009, it was licensed for 509 beds, but holds only around 200 patients. The current building is 17 stories tall. The building strongly resembles the main building of the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens. It is adjacent to Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, a specialized facility for patients with criminal convictions.
The Danvers State Hospital, also known as the State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers, The Danvers Lunatic Asylum, and The Danvers State Insane Asylum, was a psychiatric hospital located in Danvers, Massachusetts. It was built in 1874, and opened in 1878, under the supervision of prominent Boston architect Nathaniel Jeremiah Bradlee, on an isolated site in rural Massachusetts. It was a multi-acre, self-contained psychiatric hospital designed and built according to the Kirkbride Plan.
Edgewood State Hospital was a tubercular/psychiatric hospital complex that formerly stood in Deer Park, New York, on Long Island. It was one of four state mental asylums built on Long Island, and was the last one of the four to be built.
Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, formerly known as Pilgrim State Hospital, is a state-run psychiatric hospital located in Brentwood, New York. Nine months after its official opening in 1931, the hospital's patient population was 2,018, as compared with more than 5,000 at the Georgia State Sanitarium in Milledgeville, Georgia. At its peak in 1954, Pilgrim State Hospital could claim to be the largest mental hospital in the U.S., with 13,875 patients. Its size has never been exceeded by any other facility, though it is now far smaller than it once was.
The Utica Psychiatric Center, also known as Utica State Hospital, opened in Utica on January 16, 1843. It was New York's first state-run facility designed to care for the mentally ill, and one of the first such institutions in the United States. It was originally called the New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica. The Greek Revival structure was designed by Captain William Clarke and its construction was funded by the state and by contributions from Utica residents.
Georgia's state mental asylum located in Milledgeville, Georgia, now known as the Central State Hospital (CSH), has been the state's largest facility for treatment of mental illness and developmental disabilities. In continuous operation since accepting its first patient in December 1842, the hospital was founded as the Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum, and was also known as the Georgia State Sanitarium and Milledgeville State Hospital during its long history. By the 1960s the facility had grown into the largest mental hospital in the world. Its landmark Powell Building and the vast, abandoned 1929 Jones Building stand among some 200 buildings on two thousand acres that once housed nearly 12,000 patients.
Central State Hospital, formerly referred to as the Central Indiana Hospital for the Insane, was a psychiatric treatment hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana. The hospital was established in 1848 to treat patients from anywhere in the state, but by 1905, with the establishment of psychiatric hospitals in other parts of Indiana, Central State served only the counties in the middle of the state. In 1950, it had 2,500 patients. Allegations of abuse, funding shortfalls, and the move to less institutional methods of treatment led to its closure in 1994. Since then efforts have been made to redevelop the site for various uses.
The Central Islip State Hospital (CISH) Powerplant was constructed in 1953 by the Titusville Iron Works Co. and The Interboro Co.
Historic Central Islip Recreation Center Building, located on 555 Clayton Street in Central Islip, New York, was constructed in the late 19th century as part of the Central Islip State Hospital First Colony.
The Norwich State Hospital, originally established as the Norwich State Hospital for the Insane, later shortened to the Norwich Hospital, was a psychiatric hospital located in Preston and Norwich, Connecticut. It opened its doors in October 1904 and operated until October 10, 1996. Throughout the near-century it operated, it housed geriatric patients, chemically dependent patients, and from 1931-1939, tubercular patients. The hospital, which sits on the banks of the Thames River, began with a single building on 100 acres of land, and expanded to over 30 buildings and 900 acres at its peak. A 70 acre property including the hospital was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
Deer Park is a station along the Main Line of the Long Island Rail Road. It is officially located at Pineaire Drive, Executive Avenue, and Long Island Avenue in Baywood, New York.
The Hudson River State Hospital is a former New York state psychiatric hospital which operated from 1873 until its closure in the early 2000s. The campus is notable for its main building, known as a "Kirkbride," which has been designated a National Historic Landmark due to its exemplary High Victorian Gothic architecture, the first use of that style for an American institutional building. It is located on US 9 on the Poughkeepsie-Hyde Park town line.
Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, established in 1892 as the Matteawan State Hospital by an 1892 law, functioned as a hospital for insane criminals. It was located in the town of Fishkill just outside the city of Beacon, New York; today its buildings form part of Fishkill Correctional Facility.
Worcester State Hospital was a Massachusetts state mental hospital located in Worcester, Massachusetts. It is credited to the architectural firm of Weston & Rand. The hospital and surrounding associated historic structures are listed as Worcester Asylum and related buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Terrence Building is an abandoned high-rise building and former psychiatric hospital in the Azalea neighborhood of Rochester, New York. Opened in 1959, the 16-story tower was once the home of the Rochester State Hospital, serving as a mental ward that boasted 1,000 beds until it closed in 1995. The empty building, which was one of the largest mental health facilities built in the United States, continues to rise above the southern outskirts of the city to this day.
Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center is a maximum-security facility for the mentally ill on Wards Island in New York City, operated by the New York State Office of Mental Health as one of two psychiatric hospitals in the state that treat felony patients. The building, described as "fortresslike", is adjacent to the Manhattan Psychiatric Center. Of its more than 200 patients, 50 are deemed criminally insane; it houses pre-trial detainees unfit to stand trial as well as convicted defendants granted an insanity plea. Among its famous historical inmates was murderer and cannibal Daniel Rakowitz.