Portal:Featured Article Of The Week
Featured Article Of The Week
Kings Park State Hospital
Prior to the establishment of this institution in 1885 all of the insane of Kings County were treated in the local institution situated in the suburbs of Brooklyn and known as the Kings County Lunatic Asylum. The rapid growth of the general population of the county, due largely to an unprecedented immigration, produced a disproportionate increase in the number of insane in the county and added enormously to the serious overcrowding in the county asylum.
Although successive superintendents pleaded with the county authorities for additional buildings, no provision for relief was made.
Finally, when conditions became intolerable, after patients had been crowded into the basements of the large asylum building and into an old frame building quite unfit for the purpose, public sentiment compelled action by the county authorities, and in 1885 about 850 acres of land were purchased at St. Johnland, 43 miles to the east, on Long Island, and a branch asylum was established.
Temporary frame buildings were erected on the new site for the immediate reception of patients, and in the fall of 1885 55 patients, 32 men and 23 women, were transferred to the St. Johnland Farm.
The new institution was established on the cottage plan. Sixteen frame buildings were to be erected to accommodate about 450 patients, and a laundry, heating plant, barns, etc., were also to be built. But progress in the erection of these buildings was very slow. In the spring of 1887 150 additional patients were received, making a total of 200, all being crowded into the three original temporary buildings. Click here for more...
