Scouting An Abandoned Mental Asylum: A Visit To The Rockland Psychiatric Center, Part 1

316 Comments

1. Too bad this place looks like it’s gonna go. Architecturally, historically and horticulturally beautiful!

2. Hey Scout,

   I grew up a town away from the Psych center. I was under the impression (from the local paper) only a portion of the center was going to be demolished due to years of disrepair and structural issues. News to me it’s the whole place, but then again, doesn’t surprise me.

   I performed at Rockland Psych with my middle school chorus 17 years ago. I remember being really nervous to go there. It looked deserted on the exterior even then. Once we were inside, it looked almost exactly like your pictures, seriously chipped walls, utter disrepair. Just add some old furniture and people who were either slightly imbalanced, seriously depressed, or who were experiencing PTS as a result of war, or others who thought they were still at war. I remember one man throwing fake grenades at us, another man removed for masturbating in his chair as we sang, and an old woman who wept loudly the entire time we performed. I have no idea how the school got away with taking us there, but they did. I have a feeling after our experience they didn’t go back again.

   When my sister was in high school, she’d hear stories of people who would have keggers in the abandoned buildings. Keep in mind, some of the center was still a working facility at the time. Both daring and stupid of those kids, but I’m sure they have some interesting stories to tell.

   Thanks for sharing your pictures. I should get back there and shoot some of it. it’s a really interesting place.

   P.S. We worked on a movie together.

   1. AVB,

      The most distressing part of your anecdote is that they allowed middle school kids into a psych hospital! OMG! My husband is a psychiatrist at a psych hospital and children aren’t even allowed onto the units to see their parents. Ever. That population can not mingle with children. Yikes.

   2. I had a similar experience in high school. Our catholic school Glee Club performed at the Bridgewater Massachusetts Prison for the Criminally Insane. In our pleated/plaid skirts we sang behind bars to prisoners convicted of mostly sexual crimes who leered, sketched our pictures and pleasured themselves. Afterwards we were served cookies and tea by the inmates that were “good”. It was crazy then, but now I think, what school administrator thought this was safe? Well that would be someone who works for the Boston Archdiocese and we know how well they monitered their priests? On the other hand my mother used to drop us off in the toy departments of the stores downtown while she shopped on other floors, so in retrospect I would not expect her to raise an eyebrow, but didn’t anyone have a parent that saw this as an unhealthy experience for a 15 year old girl? I guess since nothing really terrible happened I appreciate telling this story if only to point out that our parents really did not know what the hell they were doing in the 70’s lol

3. Oh… I think this looks really creepy. It feels like an old prison or even a concentration camp.

   No, I am sorry, if i lived in the area I would be happy if they tore it down and replaced it with something happier.

   Imagine the horrors that have taken place there…

   1. Clearly you have no idea what a concentration camp actually looked like.

4. Man, I envy people a bit of larger countries over such abandoned places. I only have abandoned farms and barns. 🙂

   Thank you.

   1. Where are you Jon? I’m assuming Europe. If so, I would think there are tons of places that are abandoned. Is that so?

5. I’m guessing this is also the mental hospital that Allen Ginsberg is referring to in the 3rd section of Howl?
   (every other line is “i’m with you in rockland,” in reference to carl soloman, who he met in a psych ward, i think?)

   1. I immediately though of Howl when I saw this post.

      It is the Rockland referred to in Howl. However, I recall reading (possibly in Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions) that Carl Solomon was actually in a less poetic-sounding facility; he used the name Rockland because it sounded better.

      1. Ginsburg’s mother spent time in Rockland

   2. Yes. This is what Ginsberg is referring to in Howl.

6. Have you seen Session 9? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0261983/

   1. Yup – in fact, I grew up right nearby the old Danvers State Hospital they shot at, and at one point was nabbed by rent-a-cops for sneaking in. It used to be the most gorgeous facility on an unbelievably high hill looking out over town. Then they tore it all down and built the most BORING condos you can imagine. Sigh…

      1. I was going to mention Danvers also. I got a bit obsessed with it’s history after seeing Session 9 a few years ago. It was such a shame they built those condos there. I am, however a big believer in energy, good or bad, hanging around places and I can’t imagine living there. I was glad I got to see it in person a couple years ago when on a trip to Boston.

7. Wow…. awesome pictures Scout. And completely creepy. The ‘I’m Scared’ blackboard really gave me chills. Sort of reminds me of Shutter Island a bit, though maybe only because I literally just saw that movie last week. Anyway, looking forward to next week’s!

8. Traverse City, Michigan had a similar situation. They had a large state mental hospital which closed down and sat idle for some time. Instead of tearing it down, some developers worked to utilize the existing buildings as residential and commercial space. Some of the original structures still exist in their abandoned state but the plans are to utilize them as needed, not to tear them down. Check out http://www.thevillagetc.com/index.html for more info on how they utilize a similar set of structures.

   1. Thanks for that link, J Howe, that looks like an amazing renovation. Why can’t this be done to more places? It breaks my heart to see these places pulled down when this renovation is clearly more wonderful than anything that might have been built in its place.

9. I grew up in Cedar Grove, NJ, where we had not one but TWO ancient facilities like this. One is already gone, and the other is scheduled for demolition.

   http://www.mountainsanatorium.net/

   That’s the Essex Mountain Sanatorium, which was completely demolished a few years back.

   http://www.weirdnj.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=230&Itemid=28

   That’s the Overbrook Asylum, which was still in operation until recently, and still houses a few county offices. Demolition is supposed to beging shortly.

   You can still visit Overbrook, although the Essex Country Sheriff frowns upon walking around. However, there is a road that runs through the complex that’s commonly used by locals as a shortcut and no one seems to mind. I guess it’s just if you get out and walk around that the Sheriff gets upset. We used to wander around the grounds as kids all the time, and it was always scary. It was an active mental institution at the time, and the more harmless residents were allowed to walk the grounds (or up the street to Dunkin Donuts, as long as they made it back at night, I suppose). Of course, to a 10 year old kid, no mental patient is harmless, in our imagination they were all axe murderers.

   If you google image search Overbrook Hospital, you’ll see how beautiful the buildings in the complex are. It’s really a shame nothing can be done with them.

   They are being torn down for parkland and a housing development, along with the land from the Essex Mountain Sanitorium (the two properties are right next to each other), although the housing development has been caught up in zoning disputes for years now.

   1. Ha–this also reminded me of Essex Mountain, where my friends and I did some nighttime exploring when I was in high school. I remember there was a long walk through the woods just to get to it (at least it seemed pretty long at the time). All I remember about the inside is that it was covered in graffiti, and that someone had strapped a dummy to a hospital bed.

      I also did some exploring in the Essex County Isolation Hospital in Belleville, which I’m not sure is still there either. There was a room filled with a mountain of shoes (my friends took some), and in another hallway a big mural of the Peanuts characters. We found toe tags and gurneys in the tunnels underneath.

   2. Hi Brian. Seen your post about the Overbrook Essex asylum and hoping you can give me more information on it. I live in southern NJ, Gloucester County, and am very interested in this institution but thought that it was prob demolished by now from what Iv’e seen online but was very optimistic when I read your post. Can you please give me any current info on it. It would be greatly appreciated!
      Anna

10. Scout, What is it about that piece of equipment that makes you think it might be a sterilizer? It looks like a refrigerator to me. It’s certainly not an autoclave (heat sterilizer).

    1. I agree, that is 100% a refrigerator. i don’t think autoclaves ever have glass windows on them

11. This reminds me of an old hospital on Staten Island. Have you ever been to the old Bayley Seton Hospital campus on Staten Island? This place reminds me of it A LOT. It was only shut down completely just a few years ago. The last thing they shut down (I think. I may be wrong.) was the psychiatric unit. I remember a friend of mine taking a random disturbed homeless person there just before the whole thing closed. I’ve only ever seen pictures of the old main entrance and it looked very cool. I’m pretty sure it’s abandoned now. It just sits there in the middle of one of the busiest parts of Staten Island and you can literally see it from miles around (if you know where to look you can actually see it from the harbor when you’re on the ferry)

    These two complexes look like they are from the same era. If you haven’t been, I bet you would love it. And I have to admit, I would love to seen some fantastic pictures of the place like you’ve done here. 🙂

    1. Are you talking about the Samuel R. Smith Infirmary? I used to go there and take pictures (I’m not alone: http://kingstonlounge.blogspot.com/2009/01/samuel-r-smith-infirmary.html) Once, while looking in some of the satellite buildings I found a building full of pit bulls – someone was hiding them/breeding them for fighting there. Ugh.

       Beautiful building, though.

       1. That’s the old Staten Island Hospital you’re thinking of. It officially closed when it was replaced by the new facility on southern SI in 1979. I remember it being operational when I was a little kid. It’s now a failed condo project – ‘Castleton Castle.’

          The Bayley Seton Hospital is off Bay Street on Vanderbilt. It’s a huge complex compared to the old SI Hospital. if you like the Kingston Infirmary, you’ll love Bayley Seton.

12. By the way, while lobotomy has a justifiably horrible reputation that is unlikely ever to be improved, shock (electroconvulsive) therapy has been, uh, rehabilitated. Here is a telling paragraph from wikipedia:

    “Informed consent is a standard of modern electroconvulsive therapy.[4] Involuntary treatment is uncommon in the United States and is typically only used in cases of great extremity, and only when all other treatment options have been exhausted and the use of ECT is believed to be a potentially life saving treatment.[5] Similarly, national audits of ECT use in Scotland and Ireland have demonstrated that the vast majority of patients treated give informed consent.[6] Although once frowned upon, recent years have seen an increased acceptance of ECT as a safe, effective and economical tool for the treatment of some mental illnesses. Yet it is rarely used as the first line of treatment.[7]”

13. If only the big companies were restorers instead of construction. There’s just not as much frivelous money being shared around in restoration I guess. If I was mayor I would stop construction incentives and put it all to restoration.

14. Completly Awesome. Im from Spain and addicted at your work.

    Thank You very much scout!

15. LOVE this – thanks for the thorough documentation! It reminds me also of the unrestored south side of Ellis Island – every year they open it up on Open House NYC day for small free tours so you can go see where thousands of immigrants were held up for medical reasons before being approved to enter the country or returned to their countries of origin. Chilling and haunting and just as you said, very heavy.

16. Dear god, that chalkboard is terrifying! Along with the creepily happy mouse and maniacal bear, and hippo wearing shoes…you can’t make these things up. And the snow makes everything deceptively serene. I’m tempted to check this out, or just write a horror story about it.

    1. Can we visit? or is it completely closed off to tourists? If so, please tell me! Thanks!

17. There was an abandoned sanitarium outside of Green Bay, WI for years, which is now torn down. When we were teenagers we used to drive out there at night and dare each other to go in. Rumor has it there were empty elevator shafts and pentagrams spray painted on the walls by all of the satan worshippers that had their ceremonies there (lol)! I can see online it was called the Hickory Grove Sanitarium, and it was for TB patients, but I can’t find any pics.

    1. Here is a pic of the old sanitorium. I use to go out their with friends when I was a teenager – so many fun memories!http://www.asylumprojects.org/index.php?title=Hickory_Grove_Sanatorium

18. If you get a chance, I highly recommend checking out the Harlem Valley Psych Center in Dover Plains, NY (in eastern Dutchess County).

    I was an extra in a movie that was shot there, and the place is awesomely creepy. There are underground tunnels that connect all the buildings, padded rooms, a small baseball stadium and even a bowling alley!

    I heard recently that it’s also going to fall victim to development, so hopefully you can check it out before that happens. (If you do get permission to check out the inside, I’d love to join you and see it again!)

    Also, as I’m sure you’re aware, there are a ton of old psych centers all over Long Island, the Hudson Valley, and Connecticut.

    1. I have to agree – Put Harlem Valley on your must-see list. I’ve driven by it on a few occasions. Slow at first – then you just want to get past it quickly.

19. Awesome thanks for the pics

20. Wow! These pictures are amazing! My father grew up in Rockland County andI’d love to ask him if he ever knew about this place.

21. If you think that is creepy. Head up to North Rockland area and go to Letchworth Village Area. Those buildings would really creep you out..

    1. I know exactly what you’re talking about Terri. I play golf a lot at Rotella and you can see many of the old houses on Ridge and Letchworth Village Roads. Always wondered what they were as they’re all uniform. Do you know?

       1. A google search shows that Letchworth Village was a home for epileptic and feeble-minded persons…but I’m not really sure what they mean by that. I grew up in Rockland County, and when I was young, our chorus actually visited Letchworth and sang to the patients. I remember it being a really creepy place but not much else about it. Apparently it was closed down in 1996…and some people claim its haunted. Its weird to think I went there as a child.

          1. ah yes, google. i’m an idiot. i never knew the name of the place and didn’t even think to look it up when Terri said Letchworth Village. thanks for the info guys!

       2. When my family moved up near Letchworth, it was filled with mentally retarded people. Both with Downs Syndrome and other mental diseases. Most of the larger building were dormitories. My mother mentioned that Geraldo Rivera did an expose that basically started the movement of removing people from institutions like that one and starting the group home way of living. It’s interesting that the building are starting to be repurposed, (made a junior high out of some buildings) but some of them are falling down..Sometimes even driving through there some night on the way to my folks house I get creeped out a little..

          1. It was Willowbrook on Staten Island that was the subject of Rivera’s expose. From what I understand, the expose really was a watershed moment, leading to a nationwide change in the treatment of the mentally retarded. The deinstutionalization of the mentally ill, which lead to the scaling-back of the Rockland Psychiatric Center and the closing of many others, was the culmination of a trend and not the result of any single event.

             1. You can watch the documentary on youtube

22. I am one of those “feely” people and let my imagination go when I enter an old or abandoned building. I feel the people (I actually see them in appropriate period clothing), smell the smells, try and get into the thoughts of the prior inhabitants and think about what their day may have been like. I love all your posts and am a huge fan. I really “felt” these pics…a certain sadness and despair but I really felt strong vibes of utter loneliness. Keep em’ coming Scout and thanks for your work and sharing it with all of us.

23. Wow… awesome Scout. I really enjoy your work- but this really spoke to me in a special way. I can imagine the sadness and isolation a lot of those patients must have felt. I’m sure those walls speak volumes. What a beautiful place to have housed such sadness.

24. This might be the wrong place to ask this, but how were states and municipalities able to afford to build places like these and why were they allowed to go into decay?

25. Awesome! This post reminded me of the Harlem Valley State Hospital, which is across from the Harlem Valley-Wingdale station on Metro North. I drove by the hospital once on the way to western Connecticut and really wanted to stop, but my wife vetoed that. I’d love to get up there sometime, though.

    1. Ha. I drove by with my wife, and just at the end was someone thumbing for a ride. I jokingly asked if we should stop and give him a ride. Cold dinner that night.

26. these old pysch centers are just fabulous. there’s one up in utica that must be considered the white house of pysch centers. it’s awesome, utica pyschiatric center only part is in use now.

27. Best. Post. Ever.

    Can’t wait for part two.

28. Had a buddy who was a patient there briefly in the eighties.
    Went to visit him with another friend and was impressed at
    how vast this place was,it even had it’s own onsite fire station
    that we had stop at to ask for directions when we got lost.
    What was weird, was how most of the buildings were obviously
    unoccupied but my friend and other patients were housed in one
    building. Even stranger, when we walked in on the ground floor
    all of the patients were milling about and the staff were in
    an office seemingly “safe” behind a dutch door while we were
    surrounded by these poor souls looking for attention and cigarettes
    from us.Although most of the patients seemed harmless it was a
    very unnerving experience.

29. I was also interested in the mention of electroshock therapy since it definitely is still in use (or was not very long ago- I’d heard of it and then met a friend’s sister who was ‘in a bad way’ and in the middle of a series of shock treatments. It was unforgettable. It does seem barbaric…)

    The pix of the bear, bunnies and hippo- they are creepy in that setting. That hippo looks like there are balls of fire coming out of the end of its snout… gave me a turn!

30. Forget about the sterilizer thingie, that chair is awesome:
    ( http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5212/5385555103_d4927e997e.jpg )

    Great post, Scout. Glad you’re making photos of these buildings as they are now. Often the only time we get to see pictures of abandoned buildings are when the excavators are ploughing through it! It’s such a shame there’s not more interest for re-use currently. I guess it’s way cheaper to tear it down and dump cheap concrete buildings instead, but in 20 years time our children will scold us for removing everything that reminds us of our history.

    1. I was thinking the same thing. Would love to get my hands on that chair!

31. Completely captivated by these photos. I spent time scrolling through, and will come back again and spend more time. Wonderful stuff — thank you for posting these!

32. You have an uncanny ability to capture tHe “creepy” in the abandoned buildings that you photograph. This place was partcularly disturbing especially the schoolroom with the chalke board flanked by those morbid animals. It was as if It had been waiting for you to come along.

33. It was a blast from the past to see these photos. Both of my parents worked at this facility. My mother worked in patient care from 1961 to 1981 and my Dad worked in the power plant. I had the opportunity to visit them both at work on various occasions while I was growing up. I have to say that I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to observe the world of mental illness first hand. I grew up with an understanding of this aspect of life’ one that most people are ignorant of. It was a very sad day when the State of New York in its infinite wisdom decided to open the doors and put the patients out on the street!

    1. To me it was also a blast from the past. A past that i remember so well, yet I’m not too sure. I was a patient at Rockland state back in 1961. Even though it did have all those weird and creepy people, remember, that they were people in need. When i got there i was given a ground pass. I Was 15 y/o. I use to run around the ground and i knew practically all the case care personnel workers I probably knew your family but, its been so long that i don’t remember any names or faces.i liked the months that i was there, i had some very happy times. Its been 50 year and i would like to see it before is gone. I was there for 6 months. PS. All the workers at rockland hospt.were very ggod people.

34. Wow, I’m glad you posted this today and not tomorrow, or I wouldn’t have been able to find these pictures on my random search of the day. I’m from the area, and I heard a ghost story or two of patients escaping. Also drove by it whenever my brother needed a ride to PT at the Natl Guard building.
    Were you able to get to those areas from the main entrance? I was always too freaked out to enter, but it really does look quite amazing.

35. the I’m scared is so obviouly graffiti that i don’t find it in the least creepy – what is kind of sad and creepy is that there are rooms seemingly for children (?) unless that was for DD adults…
    It is too bad that all will be sacrificed when renovation could potentially result in very lovely living quarters for varying levels of assisted/independent living seniors. But from a marketing standpoint, how many would really want to move into an old asylum!

    1. But from a marketing standpoint, how many would really want to move into an old asylum!

       The old cancer hospital on Central Park West was converted into luxury condominiums some years ago, the buyers obviously being able to overlook the building’s unhappy past. It probably will work much the same if this facility ever becomes housing.

36. There was a movie called “Snakepit” that was filmed at the R.P.C. I believe the film was made in the 40’s.

37. This is what kinda chaps my hide about developers. They’re rather destroy than reuse. If the building is structurally sound I see no reason to tear it down. Sand/water blasting and paint can do a lot. The interesting thing I keep on saying about NYC and the areas around it is the eclectic architecture and its varied history. There’s always something for me to do on my annual trips up there. When all these moronic developers get done with all they want to “develop” there won’t be anything worth developing.There’s just way too much destruction all in the name of making a buck.

38. Around 1990 I made a few trips to a state employees’ credit union branch that was located on the grounds of the Fairfield Hills mental hospital in Connecticut. The hospital was still open at the time, but just barely, with most of the buildings boarded up and the employee parking lots nearly empty. It was a distinctly creepy experience, the frisson heightened by my knowledge of what the facility had been. A largely abandoned college, for instance, wouldn’t have been nearly so bad.

    Fairfield Hills closed for good around 1995. I would imagine that the credit union branch was gone sometime before that.

39. Thanks for the pics, Scout. My wife grew up minutes from there, and my in-laws still live nearby. Might have to stop by next time I’m in the area.

40. Amen to Eric, Why tear down when the place should be rehabbed. Scout, as always thanks for some awesome pix. Really cool place. Can’t see why it can’t be redeveloped without tearing the whole place down and starting over again. That level of workmanship will be hard to replicate.

41. Scout, your blog is getting better and better. Thanks for the photos, which are just brilliant. However, if the place is just abandoned, and ahs been so for quite a while, I think it is wise to use it for other purposes. But instead of tearing all the buildings down, I hope at least some of them could be rebuilt (as they did with the old National Hospital (Rikshospitalet) buildings in downtown Oslo, Norway, to give one example).

    Dag T. Hoelseth
    Oslo, Norway

42. Have you seen Session 9? Watch that movie and then go back to that place. I would not step foot in there after that!

43. Creepy. You should check out Pilgrim state hospital in Suffolk county. It may be more eerie than this place.

44. “It was a very sad day when the State of New York in its infinite wisdom decided to open the doors and put the patients out on the street!”

    You can thank Pres Reagan for that. He ordered them all to be opened up, and didn’t bother to set up places for them to go. The group homes that were so greatly toated at the time are few and far between, with huge waiting lists. The care of the mentally ill has been historically abysmal in this country, esp for those without money. You’d think with the recent shootings, more attention would be given to making sure people with mental illness received humane care and appropriate treatment. I don’t want to go back to the days of those horrid institutions, but Im not sure what we have now is all that much better.

    I don’t see a big deal about kids performing for patients of such a hospital. Most people with mental illness are not violent!! And I suspect the violent ones were safely in their locked wards. The site of kids performing probably did some good for those who had little if any change from the day to day drudge of institution life, and I suspect for some of the kids, came an awareness of a world they never knew existed, and perhaps opened their eyes and hearts.

    Great photos as always, Scott!

    1. “I don’t see a big deal about kids performing for patients of such a hospital.” I have a young daughter, and the thought of her in a short pleated skirt, standing in front of men who were pleasuring themselves and making comments is horrifying and probably scarring. What do you think is okay with that scenario?

    2. Thanks for clearing that up Cindy. To think for the last 43 years I was under the impression it was Bobby Kennedy & Giraldo Rivera that put all the crazies on the street.

45. I love those chairs! We have something similar in N E philly at rt 1 and byberry rd. Very creepy.

46. Those pics are hauntingly beautiful. If you want to see a scarier place go to Kings Park Psyhc in Long Island and swing by Pilgrim State just south of KPPC. Most of Pilgrim has been demolished but what remains is beautiful.

    http://www.opacity.us/site3_kings_park_psychiatric_center.htm

    http://www.opacity.us/site23_pilgrim_state_hospital.htm

47. I lived just on the other side of the Palisades Parkway, in Bergen County, NJ when I was little, and while I’d never been to the facility, I remember seeing directional signs leading to the hospital. A common phrase in the area when referring to “nutty behavior”: “you’ll either end up in Bergen Pines or Rockland County…”
    Actually, the interiors remind me so much of visiting orphanages in Ukraine (especially the mouse and bear murals on the walls).

48. Beautiful photos. Haunting site. I love everyone’s comments, too.

49. Great work, Scout.

50. The mural has a distinctly WPA look to it – there are apparently folks concerned about the possible destruction of other Works Progress Admin.-funded artworks at the hospital:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7OU8CLotFc

    Great post – thanks for sharing this!

51. The abandoned sections of Seaview Hospital on Staten Island and almost-abandoned Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood (LI), evoke similar feelings of curious dread for me.

52. Hey Scout,

    I’m from Binghamton, NY even further upstate and this article on Rockland reminded me of the Binghamton State Hospital. Originally built in 1858 as the New York State Inebriate Asylum, it was in use up until 1993. It is currently registered as one of NY State’s most endangered buildings although hopefully it will soon be restored (see last link). Take a look at the pictures I was able to find online and if possible, take the 3 hour bus trip and see for yourself. It truly is a beautiful building with an amazing view of the valley below and I’m sure you could capture it’s character far better than what is currently available.

    Thanks!!

    http://nysasylum.com/bia.htm

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Inebriate_Asylum

    And a final link showing that good things can happen!

    http://nyslandmarks.com/treasures/08apr2.htm

53. Hi,

    Love reading your site every day! So glad I found it.

    Any updates on Penelope? Hope she is thriving in her DC home!

54. Someone else may have already answered this in the comments (I didn’t read them all), but the piece of equipment that you thought might be used for sterilization is likely just a refrigerator in a laboratory. In my lab (I’m a microbiologist), my refrigerator looks pretty much the same today! It’s just missing the inside shelves. But the vents at the top are used to lessen the humidity/moisture that accumulates inside, or to circulate the air, possibly. As an example, mine is used to store media (petri dishes with agar in them, enrichment broth) and positive controls for testing, etc.

55. I loved these photos. I live in Salem, Oregon where most of the (much smaller) state mental hospital is now being torn down and new, incredibly depressing buildings built in its place. The old hospital was the setting of Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The actual hospital was used in the movie and the director had a part in the movie. I sure hope someone has documented the Oregon hospital the way you have Rockland.

56. Hi Scout – great series of pictures. I enjoyed looking through them all. I grew up about 5 minutes from this place, and have many memories of it from over the years. I plan on doing a photo essay of it and was wondering how you were able to get some of your pictures. You appear to be inside some of the buildings for some of these shots. Did you have to get permission from someone prior, and if so could you give me the name(s)? There are many locations for great outdoor shots, but I’d love to get inside some of those old abandoned buildings.

    Thanks for any insight you can offer. Keep up the great work!

57. Scout
    I grew up down the road from this hospital. We were told alot of awful stories about it including someone escaping and killing someone in the neighborhood. If you want a firsthand account of someone who was at Rockland as a child, see
    http://icspp-icspporg.blogspot.com/2011/01/allen-ginsberg-at-rockland-state.html
    What they did to patients was appauling and was really torture.
    Also, fyi, Allen Ginsberg spent 8 months there.
    Sue

58. Scout these pictures are amazing. I was recently awarded an interview at Rockland and was wondering if any one can tell me any HELPFUL information other then all I have read. I read about the Hep infections, and other random info. Thank you I really appreciate any information.

59. damn man nice photos, i was just here the other day and half those building arent even there anymore. such a shame.

60. Those are beautiful pictures and it is a very sad if the facility will be torn down. There has been talk of it for years but nothing has happened so far. For me there are many happy memories of patients that I have met from all walks of life and many staff members that I love and miss. Many of those employees that I knew have long retired and quite a few have passed away. I live minutes away from what used to be known as Rockland State Hospital, and in my mind that is the name that sticks to this day. My uncle was a building director along with being the union leader for many years, my aunt was the head nurse in the operating room, that yes, had performed lobotomies very long ago. One of my other aunts also worked there and another uncle volunteered there for at least thirty years. They had all gone to nursing school there, way, way back when. Needless to say both uncles had passed away and my two aunts are close to their nineties. I had volunteered there for several years in the alcohol rehab before it was called “Blaisdell ATC”, (actually I remember and was there at the small dedication of the new name), and long before it was moved to Building 57, which is where it is now.

    Here is a true piece for your imagination, in the basements of the buildings are metal signs posted for ‘atomic’ fallout, where those would go if we were attack by atomic bombs.

    You would have loved the keys to the gates going in and out of the grounds, they were big skeleton keys- antiques nowadays.

    And although it was an insane asylum, or rather a psychiatric hospital, it was always brimming with activity, with many people (patients and employees) walking around, from one place to another. The large cafeteria was often crowded and the church on the grounds too (where my uncles’ funeral masses were held). And I can tell you I was never afraid walking around the campus, was it because I was young and didn’t think? No I don’t think so. Bad things can happen anywhere and all the times that I was there and all the years living near there, there were no more frequencies of incidents than in the world beyond those gates.

61. I lived two miles away almost my whole life. In fact, dear old dad (deceased) spent a little time there for alcoholism treatment in the 1950’s. Most buildings are still there, and it’s an interesting place to drive through, or walk or bike as I’ve done often. The Center was also for the criminally insane in the 50’s, and I would hear from friends “Be careful, a nut has escaped from Rockland Pysch”. But, it always seemed to be but the stuff that kids used to say to enliven our outside days. We spent every day outdoors playing- no computer games or off to the fields with parents to engage with organize games like today. We’ll see what happens with the property.

62. Rockland and other facilities of its kind belong to an era before the decision in a court in Pennsylvania in 1961, I believe. In that era, whether a person was ever released depended upon his or her level of skill in an assigned occupation that met the needs of the facility; sort of a mental health version of Das Arbeit machen Sie frei.” (Please pardon the fractured German). I do not recall whether the Pennsylvania suit was heard in a state or federal court or what the legal question was.

    Institutions like Rockland were essentially self-supporting communities; many of them had extensive farms and in some cases factories producing goods for the institution and others in the state.

    The Pennsylvania decision was followed closely by a decision in a Michigan state court that turned the institutional world a little farther upside down when Judge Horace Gilmore ruled that a man sentenced to the Ionia State Hospital for the Criminally Insane on a rape conviction could not be held longer in that facility than the prison term for the offense, especially since the facility did and had not provided any appropriate psychiatric treatment.

    But to return to Rockland and other facilities.

    One of the best examples of use for such architectural gems is in Athens, Ohio on the campus of the Ohio University. Formerly the Athens State Hospital for the Mentally Ill, the facility became part of the university shortly after the university opened its College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1976 when the medical school faculty was engaged to provide treatment to the residents. The facullty was horrified to find that the patients had not received so much as basic physicals in years.

    The facility had a famous dairy farm operated by the residents. When the facility was closed, there was some clamor for tearing it down. Fortunately the university administration had a strong bent towards historical preservation due mainly to the influence of Claire Ping, whose spouse was president of the university. There was also a strong local group of artists and crafts such as furniture-making who saw the dairy barn as a great site for a museum. The museum, referred to as the Dairy Barn, was renovated chiefly by volunteers who supplied money,labor, and materials. The museum is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

    The main building is now the Kennedy Museum at Ohio University and is a fine arts museum that attracts considerable attention for its exhibits.

    But to return to Rockland. My grandfather was thre from 1948 to his death in 1956. My sisters and I would accompany our parents on semi-annual visits. We were never allowed to leave the car but in nice weather in the spring and fall we could see him and our parents chatting on a porch. As far as I know according to my mother, he received decent care given the level of neurological knowledge at the time.

    Responding to Scout’s description of areas where what he calls “barbaric treatments such as electroshocks and lobotomies were performed,” I do wonder whether or not the “community mental health movement” with its failure to provide even minimal levels of care to persons who formerly would have at least had a roof and three meals a day over their heads is less barbaric.

    The mentally ill at least in Michigan appear to have found a new institutional home in the state prison system where there is a fairly minimal level of care. Those who do not fall afoul of the criminal justice system often become homeless; many of them do not have no families; others have familes who are unable to help or who choose not to participate in caring for them. One of the most pathtic sights I have ever seen occurred when an elderly woman dressed in several layers of clothing and clutchign a trash bag approached me less than half a mile from the state capitol building in downtown Lansing and asked me, “Do you know where my son is?” She was one of the homeless wellknown to the police who moved her on.

    Enough. To Scout: Thank you for the tour of Rockland. I will be happy to contribute to scouting when the Boy Scouts of America adoopt a more rational attitude towards gays.

    Fran F.

63. Again, brilliant.

64. My dad was just telling me today that he remembers being a kid, growing up in Tappan, just five or so minutes away, and occasionally hearing the Asylum’s alarm go off, indicating that someone had gotten out.
    Scary to imagine!!

65. I was a patient there in 1943 to 1946….in the kids area…at the end of the road…..I was 8 years old at the time…

66. I am working on keying naturalization records for New York and ran into an Irish woman who was an attendant there. She came over from Ireland in 1930.

67. hi scout the picturres are great i used to live a few towns over from rockland and had several family memebers that used to work there… just so you know the building with ny’s history in the hall that used to be a daycare center that i attended i do believe that there were reports of that building being haunted as i’m sure many of them are.. and some buildings were used for the staff to stay in… once again the pictures are great its crazy to see what the place looks like now considering the last time i was there it was about 20 yrs ago…

68. I grew up in Pearl River, the town where Rockland Psych was located. We had all kinds of urban legends about that place. We would occasionally hear sirens and not know what they were for. We also heard the rumors that the patients were allowed out during the day and the the sirens were calling them back. My friends volunteered there in High School (mid 90s) and have a million creepy stories. I was just there the other day and it still is as creepy as ever. I hope someone sees the creepy beauty of it and films a movie there.

69. I grew up down the road from the hospital. Ocassionaly the police would drive around and tell all the kids to go inside because someone had escaped. In jr. high school we would sometimes go with our girl scout troop to celebrate holidays with some of the children. There is still a 9 hole golf course open on the grounds. Also at one time the head psyciatrist was named Hyman Pleasure (no joke), and he lived in a beautiful home on the property.

70. @CJ – last time I checked….Rockland State Hospital was mainly located in Blauvelt. A lot of local firehouses had their softball games on the fields inside the gates off Van Wyck. As kids we’d go when Blauvelt played there with no problems whatsoever! My Mom also attended the Catholic Church on the grounds….she loved it! The pics are amazing as I remember a lot of these buildings from growing up.

71. Folks,

    It looks creepy because it is abandoned and because we have seen way too many scary movies with scenes such as those in the pictures in this article. My mother worked there for years, as did some of her friends, and as a teenager I would sometimes stop by to see her at her office. The grounds were always well-kept, and yes, as an institution it did have that institutional look, but it was not creepy. Was it a pleasant place to work? Well, not really, but it seems that the office politics was the biggest challenge.

    Lobotomies? Maybe in the early days – I have no idea – but definitely not in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.

    And as for the sirens calling patients back to the hospital – that is a load of crap, but I guess it does make for good lore.

72. These pictures are fantastic. You might consider me the jackpot of your responders here. I grew up on the grounds of Rockland State Hospital for 18 years: 1949-1967, as my father was a psychiatrist there and for the longest time in charge of one of the biggest buildings.I became a rehabiliation counselor and have worked many years in the 70’s with the deinstituionlizaztion and community mental health efforts in MA and GA. Up to the 50’s in Mental Health severe behavioral issues were handled with isolation, straight jackets,shock therapy,and a little later ineffective drugs like valium. Lobotomies were performed, but by all means this was a smaller percentage that people probably think. Whatever was done in Rockland at the time was state of the art accepted practice. Not at Rockland, but even one of the Kennedy sisters received a lobotomy because it was wideheld that it should be effective. The involvement in MH and Retardation by Eunice Kennedy Shriver evolved from her first hand family experience with her sister.

    What people do not know is that Rockland State Hospital was probalby in the forefront of psychiatric drug research and development. The clinical trials of Chloropramizine(Thorazine) in the U.S. were done there as well as other break through drugs research. Thorazine was the first widely prescribed snti-psychotic drug and remained on the market for decades.It was the breakthrough drug. Ironically it and future drugs helped make it possible for reducing psychatric hospital populations. Dr. Nathan Kline was the leading psychiiatric researcher in the country and he did it at RSH. Drs. like my Dad were part of doing the research as Kline was not in charge of any patients. On the grounds now there is a research center named after Kline.

    Looking at pictures now and thinking “how horrible”, isolated stories, and movies such as One Flew….. do not fairly potray the whole picture. I am sure for every nurse Ratchett there were numerous Florence Nightingales and for every lobotomy there were numerous patients who were treated differently. The grounds, buildings, and facilities were beautiful and kept up very well.
    Rockland also had country club like amenities for staff and patients to share: golf course,tennis courts, many fields, outdoor life guarded pool,an auditorium, bowling alley, and basketball courts. Most patients if not harmful to themselves or others roamed freely around the vast grounds. I and my neighbors among them.

    I’d like to comment more and will. Some above posts are accurate like the escapee murder, but others are not-there were no sirens. There was a factory whistle that was blown every week day at 5pm and when the Pearl River school district had a snow day.

    1. Do you know any information about one particular patient?
       I am looking for records about my grandmother Ethel Grosberg who was an inmate at Rockland Psychiatric Hospital in the 1940’s and 50’s. I was told she died in the hospital in the 60’s. Can you please help me find information about her diagnosis, treatment and life there? Any information would be helpful. Her husband was Aaron Grosberg. Her children are Anne and Morris Grosberg. Morris Grosberg is my father. Thank you. Julie Grosberg.

    2. You belong there.

73. Asbestos, outdated for municipal codes, no air conditioning. Some of the many reasons re-using the buildings would be so expensive.
    But he is right about the wall murals they are amazing and should be preserved. They are of The Legend Sleepy Hollow, and the are on canvases and could be removed and preserved. We mentioned it to the Sleepy Hollow Preservation Society a few years ago, but nothing came of it.

74. That refrigerator you asked about, was originally in the the Orangeburg Fire Department. When they were renovating their fire house the state allowed them to store some things on the campus. I remember it filled with beer.

75. HAHAHAHAHA some of the things that are being posted are quite amusing. “Alone in the Dark” was filmed there as well Jack Palance, Donald Pleasence. Building 36, second floor.

76. What I don’t see mentioned is that the hospital was adjacent to Camp Shanks, on its eastern border. Camp Shanks, “Last Stop USA,” was the largest World War II Army embarkation camp, where 1.3 million US service personnel en route to Europe were processed. My mom was a nurse at the hospital during that time and the soldiers marched from Camp Shanks to one of the tall buildings (#58 or #59); where they received necessary inoculations and examinations. The soldiers left the US by boat after marching out to the end of the long “pier” of land in Piermont where there are restaurants and condos today.

    Scout commented about the different styles of the buildings. I am thinking that those with the enclosed porches were patient residences and other low buildings were employee residences. You have a picture of a small building with one large shrub on each side of the entry, and a green railing on the stairs. This I believe is the employee dining room.

    My Dad also worked at the hospital and I visited the wards with him few times and never felt frightened. My grandmother was a cook in the Staff House kitchen and I can remember going there to visit and even helped to set tables in the staff dining room. I was probably 8 years old. The Staff House is located outside of the gates on the south side amid a complex of doctors homes.

    The whole complex was a small city; complete with medical and dental facilities, beauty and barbershops, maintenance areas, fire and police protection and entertainment. A building called The Exchange had a bowling alley on the lower level with a theater above it where movies were shown.

    As a fan of restoration I, hate to see the complex destroyed.

77. Amazing photos. If you ever scout New Jersey, check out the grounds of Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital…beautiful, WPA-era Tudor buildings. I linked this page to one of my stillanurse pages…thanks!

78. Does anyone know if this building is still up or has it been turned into those senior condos? And is it “open” for exploring…?

79. I grew up one block from the hospital grounds. We moved there in 1958, into a new housing development built on the land where Camp Shanks stood. Soon after we moved in, a patient who escaped from Rockland State murdered a woman who lived three blocks from us. The community came together to form a civic association that talked with hospital administrators about ways to keep the community safe. One of the early civic association meetings was in my parents’ house and I’m told that Betty Friedan, who lived in the community, was one of the people present. I was shipped off to my grandparents’ so that I would not hear stories of the grizzly murder.

    At Christmas time of 1966, my junior high school band (South Orangetown Middle School) played a concert of holiday music for the patients at the hospital. It was a bit scary, but most of all, fascinating. It was overly stimulating for some of the patients there. We got going with the sleigh bells and the whip and some couldn’t handle it and were removed by the staff. The whole experience piqued my interest and I went on to have a long career as a psychotherapist and administrator of mental health programs.

80. Great photos! How were you able to get into the buildings to get those shots? I’ve loved in Pearl River all my life and have on numerous occasions driven through the facility on my way home. I believe my great grandmother was actually treated there. My father was a police officer in the area and was often called to Rockland Psych. He has commented on the horrible things he saw there but never went into much detail. Growing up, I remember a story of a man escaping and murdering an entire family in the house across the street. The father of one of my childhood friends was a psychologist there in the early 90s. They lived in the staff housing (yellow buildings across the street). Parts of the facility are still operational (powerplant, machine shop, etc.) Now the grounds house the Nathan Kline Institute and a drug and alcohol treatment center as well as a well-attended church. As I drive through, and marvel at the beautifully decrepit grounds, I find my mind wandering and wondering about just what went on in there. I’d love to do some investigating and photography sessions there myself,

81. Ah! Some amazing photos! I actually went to Dominican College which is just the next exit. I believe Rockland Psych was 5W? And my school was 5E. Very easy to take the wrong exist. We had a whole bunch of legends at school of Rockland Psych. A lot of the sports teams used to send their freshman there as some sort of hazing challenge. And during Halloween time tons of kids would break into some of the buildings. One big legend about the place was that one of abandoned roads lead into the forest that would lead into an alternate dimension. Supposedly the further into the forest you went you would feel colder and colder and as you would look back it would start to blur. No missing students that I know of so I guess they eventually turned back. Also heard of students who went there coming back and feeling “odd” or “ill” because they had brought back a spirit. Usually collegiate stuff. Definitely a creepy place to explore. Great pictures though! I’ve never seen the place in the day light! It does put a new perspective on the place!

82. I worked at Rockland State Hospital, worked in Building 10, the hospital of the hospital. It was both interesting and training for the rest of my life as I worked as medical transcriptionist. Met my husband there, he was an attendant in Bldg. 58 which housed maximum security patients. One night a patient forced another employee by gun point to take him into New York City by via Tappan Zee Bridge so he wouldn’t get charged with kidnapping by going thru NJ. He was captured soon afterwards. My husband got a state stipen for going to school and was able to obtain RN license which benefited our family. Lots of memories, good and bad there. I was sitting in the steno pool when the news came about JFK getting shot. Never forgot that moment.

83. It’s a similar situation to Letchworth Village. Beautiful buildings, built better than anything going up today. At least Letchworth saved much of the original buildings and what was built new tried to maintain the style of the original.

    Rockland State has beautiful terra cotta roofs, the doorways and windows are irreplaceable. Much of the spooky look comes from the overgrowth of not being maintained. It could be a beautiful place if it were clean up and restored. Too easy to bulldoze and start over with prefab boxes.

    My church choir used to go there every Christmas and sing Christmas carols. My first full time job was working there… another girl, Debbie, and I were on a project where we visited all the buildings and prepared some paperwork. My experience with the patients was that they were a bunch of kids in adult bodies, but of course, I didn’t see everything either. Apparently, the big tall buildings (57 & 58) were where the worst patients were kept. Up there, we only saw the ones allowed to wander the floor.

    Not to mention the wildlife the area supports. So many people moved to this area to enjoy the “country” and “be one with nature”, but are so quick to destroy it.

    It will be a sad day when it gets torn down. I hope it never happens.

84. The entire site is great place to visit.The buildigs bring you back in time and when you loook through the windows or go through the buildis it makes your mind wonder. There was an old (scout?) camp ground at the southern/west end of the property that is now almost completely gone that was rite on the edge of the resovoir. I had done some vol. work there talking and working with patients and I would concider some inmates there. I run in to some of them when I visit the Palisades Mall or about the county . Alot of the Patients can go out on the local buses that travel through the facility and go to both local malls as well as Jersey or into Manhatan PABT. There is also some High lockdown locations on site I had visited where the patients/inmates are equaly interesting and needing help to get back in the community if it comes availible to them through rehabilitation. It is also the site of the first AA rehabilitation center in the country and still going strong.I hope the town of Orangetown thats buying up the propertiesdors the rite thing with it all in the end.

85. I use to go to church there @ Rockland State Hosp

86. I grew up a few towns away from this place, in Sparkill, NY. Looking at the pictures I didn’t see the two really tall ones, one of which was Building 57 where my mother worked in the mid 1960’s. I also didn’t see anything about the tunnels that ran underneath the grounds, which allowed them to take patients from one building to another without being allowed out on the surface. They were gradually closed off with locked gates and I only ever saw bits of them. The people that worked in the hospital were afraid of them and used to talk about rats but I think what they were afraid of was not rats. Truly I believe that the only thing one ever needed to be afraid of was the people who ran the place. They were very creepy.

    My father’s family had been living in the area for a very long time, and my aunt knew the director of the place very well. He was a chap named Alfred M. Stanley, and whenever she wasn’t happy with how I talked or behaved she would tell me how easy it would be for her to call him on the telephone and have me disappear forever. Later on my mother worked there, and my stepfather (both in the research foundation), and my aunt Elizabeth Pullman worked in Occupational Therapy. Later on I discovered that they had all had my father’s brother Bob put away because they didn’t like the way he made the beds or some such thing. He stayed there until he was too institutionalized to live anywhere else, and in any case they would have lost face if he had suddenly reappeared. But the people that worked in Research were a nice sort and came from all over the world: English, Welsh, Scottish, Haitian, a Russian from Buenos Aires. We all had parties at my mother’s house in Congers later on, and some of the people would bring their pajamas and stay for days.

    Eventually my parents (mother, stepfather and I) left and moved to Middletown, NY, in Orange County. Over the years I came to see that my father’s family was as mad as anybody else in that place, and their souls were as dark as any of the tunnels. But this was a very strange place, very close to the old Camp Shanks of World War II history. In those days Camp Shanks was acres and acres of rotting old barracks and deserted houses and you had the feeling that you had stepped through some sort of time-space warp into a very creepy world that you didn’t want to be in. People were inbred, illiterate, and very strange. Lucky for me there were a couple of places such as Hickory Hill in Tappan, and Palisades, where artists and writers lived. I was able to find some fairly intelligent kids to hang out with, and these kept me from following my family’s path into the day room. Now all of this is pretty much gone, and replaced with somewhat improved versions of the little boxes that Pete Seeger used to sing about, although probably the people in this area are almost as mas now as they were before. Still, somehow I miss the place even though I only spent about ten years in the house on Haring Avenue and forty in the house on Renfrewshire Drive in Middletown. Then of course there was the Piermont Pier that the soldiers used to march to and from, with the gigantic Gear Box Factory which was just as creepy as the hospital or Camp Shanks. Eventually it was pulled down to be replaced by a bunch of apartments on the pier. You would think that Orangetown actually had human beings living there now.

87. Wow, fantastic pictures. Places like these you think could make the state a killing (no pun intended) being used as movie sets.

    I was driven to google this psychiatric hospital while reading a book/memoir written by a girl who spent her adolescence in a NYC mental hospital (for being a rebellious 60s teenager), and one of her friends was sent to Rockland. Years later, she went back to visit Rockland and gives a great account of its grounds. For anyone who wants to read about what it was like being a mental patient back in the 60s, I highly recommend the book, Life Inside by Mindy Lewis: http://www.mindylewislifeinside.com/

88. In the late 70s to early 80 some of this was changed over to a drug and alcohol rehab, but I remember growing up we were always afraid of insane escaping from there. I live within a couple miles of it. We built our own stories and tales surrounding it, but as teenagers, we investigated. In it, under it and through it – I think some of it was sealed or damaged underneath, because I can remember lots of climbing, darkness and tight places.

89. This is so cool! I grew up just short walk from the hospital, on Derfuss Lane 1959-1968
    . I don’t have much to add since we didn’t go onto the grounds and moved away when I was 10. We did used to circulate rumors about escapees. Now i run research programs and thought it interesting to get applications (and fund grants) from the Nathan Kline Institute. I wasn’t curious enough to find out more but am thrilled to be learning all this now. It would be a tavesty not to try and save what is good and can be repurposed in all those buildings. Plus the literary tie ins of Ginsberg’s “Howl”

90. Myself and some friends were there last month. You actually got a lot of shot we got. It is a amazing piece of history and a beautiful landscape as you had said. However, our pictures show some difference. We walked in the evening and got a eerie feeling as soon as we were on the path to the old buildings. Our pictures were amazing in the sense of Orbs in a majority of the pictures and also personal experiences we had. All in all I feel the place should be kept standing and not to be destroyed. It is still standing after all theses years and now the children’s center is abandon.

91. This complex looks a lot like the old Bayley Seton Hospital complex on Staten Island. The hospital just closed a few years ago so all the buildings are still intact. It has the same architectural style and the same overgrown quality going on. If you like places like this you should definitely check it out. It’s right off Bay Street on Vanderbilt Avenue on Staten Island about halfway between the VN bridge and the ferry terminal. You can’t miss the place. You can even see some of its buildings from the ferry while you are crossing the harbor.

92. I came across this site after reading my recently deceased great uncle’s journal that he wrote while working as an occupational therapist at Rockland in the late 1950s.

    So bizarre to be able to see those buildings that he’s writing about, and the grounds that he describes walking through with the inmates only seconds after reading about them. The internet is amazing.

    Thanks for putting this up. I work in the film industry too and often scout strange locations around New York. It’s one of the perks that people who aren’t in the industry don’t necessarily think about. We get such cool opportunities to learn about the geography and history of New York and the surrounding areas.

93. Thanks so much for the photos. I am a 67 year old recovering alcoholic, and my Grandfather Hugh Feeley (63) died at Rockland Psychiatric Hospital in 1936. I was born in 1944, and therefore never met him. He emigrated to NYC as a young Irish boy, and became a very successful business person, working with B Altman and Co. He married my grandmother, and they had 6 children, the youngest being my Dad (George).

    The research I have done on my family indicates that grandfather, Hugh Feeley, had a serious problem with “the drink”, and spent many years drinking heavily, drying out at places like Rockland; and he eventually lost his career, and left his family while in his 50s, for the Bowery in NYC (around 1926).

    My Grandfather died at Rockland Psychiatric Hospital/Institute in 1936 after a stay of about 18 months. He had a very sad ending to his life, and our family is still riddled with alcoholism.

    I began drinking at a very early age, and watched most of my family members struggle with the disease of alcoholism. I was blessed to have found a 12 Step recovery program about 29 years ago, and have been able to maintain continuous sobriety since then.

    My grandfather entered Rockland at almost the exact same time AA started in 1935; he was not lucky like I was to have found sobriety. I am so happy I got to see these photos of the place where Grandpa died. They are not “happy photos”….

    I am no better a person than my grandfather, just a bit luckier to have been born in a time when alcoholism was better understood, and more positive help was available.

    RIP Grandpa..I love you,.

    Your grandson, Rich

94. My father, Reynolds Robertson, lived at Rockland from about 1940 to 1966 when he died. Some of you who have responded to these wonderful photos refer to working or living there during the period of his residence. I was a young boy when I last saw my father. If any of you knew him there I would be happy to hear your memories of him (unclerobbie@comcast.net)

    1. Hi, I just came across your post about your father. My biological grandmother apparently also lived there for some time, and I was hoping you had more information since your post about the whereabouts of your father and/or his life and experience in Rockland. My mother was adopted and had searched her whole life to find her birth parents, or at least find OUT about them, and she recently died and I’d like to continue her search for her. Her mother, my grandmother, lived there sometime before and after 1946, possibly even giving birth to my mom in the hospital itself. My grandmother’s last name was Becker, though I don’t know her first name. If you’ve been in touch with anyone who worked there during that time who can help me, or if by chance you happened to come across any information in your search which may have included a female patient by the name of Becker, I would very much appreciate a heads up. (mhafner@mail.com). If I find any information about a Reynolds Robertson, I will most definitely email you as well. Thanks so much.

95. I am so interested in your project How will the public know when it will be available for viewing I am a NH State Hospitl RN I habe worked in 6 different State Hospitals here in the States NH State Hospital was an excellent home to the mentally ill in NH Good Luck

96. You might want to check out Greystone in New Jersey. Maybe even more beautiful.

97. I’m with you in Rockland
    where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls’ airplanes roaring over the roof they’ve come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse O skinny legions run outside O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O victory forget your underwear we’re fre

98. I am born and raised on staten island. I have seen all the websites that have to do with the willowbrook state hospital and no wesite has all the info you really need and I think it`s sad. There are so many more things going than people talk about. What are we all so scared of. Please someone send more info. I am currently doing a project on willowbrook in staten island. I need infomation. thanks

99. I am trying to find out if Rockland State had children as patients during the 1940s and 1050s. I knew a girl, the sister of a close friend who I believe was sent to Rockland State at age 7 during the 1940s. She had Down’s Syndrome.

100. I think you added the “I’m scared” on the chalkboard.

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