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kings park psychiatric center

4/20/2017

2 Comments

 

Kings park
psychiatric center

1885-1996

Suffolk county long island

Picture
The back of the notorious "Building 93"

Kings Park Psychiatric Center is the hospital's most recent and most common name however it is also known as its former names of The Kings County Asylum, King Park Lunatic Asylum, Kings Park State Hospital, Long Island State Hospital and Northeast Nassau Psychiatric center.

"The Kings County Asylum" was established in 1885 as an extension of the Brooklyn County Hospital complex as an institution meant to relieve crowding from hospitals closer to New York City. Although it was called an asylum, the facility operated as a farm colony that was a self-sufficient community where farming, construction, clothing making, and food production were all on-site activities that both patients and staff participated in. 
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​Building 94 was built in 1953 and used as a laundry building for the entire KPPC population

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 Opposite side of building 94 which faces the empty lot where building 44 once stood before demolition. This platform was the loading dock for trucks to deliver laundry to and from the building. 

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Electrical control panel in building 29 which was the power plant built in 1967 
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Inside of building 29
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Instruction manual in control room of building 29
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Row of computers in the control room

The hospital began using insulin therapy in 1937 and shock therapy in 1939. The use of electro-shock therapy continued and by 1948 the third floor of building 93 was the designated Shock Therapy Department floor. December 1951, Dr. Meyer Rosenberg began performing pre-frontal lobotomies on selected female patients until eventually performing them on more patients which there are limited reports of. Luckily, the introduction of Thorazine and other antipsychotics put an end to these invasive procedures in 1955.

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Stairs in building 138
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View from one of the top floors of building 93

​The asylum soon became another institution in need of relief after an overwhelming increase in patient population. In 1895, ten years after its opening, the asylum was handed over to New York State and underwent a series of name changes throughout the following years. 

​1897 - New York State Hospital
1900 - Long Island State Hospital at Kings Park
1905 - Kings Park State Hospital
1974 - Kings Park Psychiatric Center
​
After the state took control of the hospital, the expansion took off. The property consisted of 150 buildings, one of which being the massive, thirteen story building 93, a power plant, and railroad station. The hospital's number of patients and staff members even outnumbered the population of the neighboring town, Smithtown before it reach it's peak population of 9,303 in 1954. ​

Picture
 The back of building 29 where the majority of the industrial equipment is kept 
Picture
 The front of York Hall (building 80) was the hospital's auditorium and theater 

The campus was originally comprised of small wooden cottages since the larger linear plan asylums were viewed as inhumane, but with the increase of patients, they had to resort to larger structures. By the late 1930s, building 93 was constructed and this enormous 13 story building was the epitome of what they wanted to avoid when establishing Kings Park. ​Building 93 was originally built to be used for patients with long term physical chronic illnesses. At first, the top floors with small dayrooms were used for bedridden patients while the lower floors with larger dayrooms were for more mobile patients. The hospital's central pharmacy was also located in the building and In the back of the building was the kitchen and employee dining hall. 
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 Corridor connecting building 138 to building 139
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 Top floor of building 93 which has suffered severe damage to the floors 
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Industrial section of the power plant building 

Due to media exposés and public concern about the conditions of these mental institutions and state hospitals, many facilities began to close including Kings Park. The state began closing buildings starting in 1970 and in 1974 the institution was renamed the Kings Park Psychiatric Center. Building closures continued for the next 22 years until the facility permanently closed its doors in 1996. Any patients that were not released or brought to group homes, or nursing homes were transferred to the nearby Pilgrim State Hospital in Brentwood. 


The four former major mental hospitals of central long island 

1. Kings Park Psychiatric Center
2. Central Islip Psychiatric Center
3. Pilgrim State Hospital 
4. Edgewood State Hospital
Picture
View from the roof on the back side of building 93 looking over buildings 94 and 29
In November of 2010, the property was evaluated and it was determined that it would cost somewhere around $215 million to demolish the remaining 57 buildings and safely remove the asbestos piping. A large portion of the property is now a designated part of the Nissequogue River State Park and construction efforts on the less decayed buildings are slowly but surely moving along.
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A suspicious fire and roof collapse after snowstorms this winter left heavy machinery precariously leaning 
Within the past few years, there have been countless arrests of trespassers on the property, multiple fires believed to be arson, a police rescue of three women trying to jump to their death off of building 93, and a rescue of teens stranded inside of a locked patient ward. Kings Park has recently stepped up security since the bodies of four teens were discovered at the nearby Pilgrim State Hospital in Brentwood. MS-13 gang members are believed to be using both Pilgrim State Hospital and Kings Park Psychiatric Center as meeting places and dumping grounds for their illegal activities and most recent murders. 
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references 

Downes, Lawrence. "Erasing the Past at the Ghost Hospital." The New York Times, 4 Aug. 2012,

Ellis, Will. "Kings Park Psychiatric Center’s Building 93." AbandonedNYC, 14 June 2014, abandonednyc.com/2014/06/17/kings-park-psychiatric-centers-building-93/.

Frishberg, Hannah. "Long Island's Infamously Decrepit Kings Park Psychiatric Center in 53 Photos." Curbed, 6 Mar. 2015, www.curbed.com/2015/3/6/9984414/kings-park-psychiatric-center-photos-abandoned.

"Kings Park Psych." LI Oddities, 2013, lioddities.com/asylums/kings-park-psych.html.

"Kings Park Psychiatric Center -." Kings Park Psychiatric Center - A Documentation, s.albalux.com/webpage/main.html.

"Kings Park Residents Want More Police Around Psych Center." News 12 Long Island, 24 June 2016, longisland.news12.com/news/kings-park-residents-want-more-police-around-psych-center-1.11963657.

"MENTAL HOSPITALS: NEW YORK." Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 137, no. 4, 1948, p. 385.
​
Patient Living Conditions at Kings Park Psychiatric Center: New York State Commission on Quality of Care Unannounced Review in August, 1985
. NYS Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally Disabled, 1986.
2 Comments
Sandy A Miller
5/20/2021 01:51:40 pm

My Grandfather Emil (Amiel) John Jubrey's brother was at The Kings Park State Hospital. His name was Joseph Jubrey, Jr., DOB 1907, was listed as an inmate on the 1930 census. I am interested in any information about Joseph Jubrey. The family story was that Joseph Jubrey, Jr., DOB 1907, had a disagreement after a movie and/or Bible discussion. Joseph Jubrey, Jr., used a fork and tried to or did poke someone's hand with a fork. My recollection is that he poked someone in the family with a fork.
I would like to know anything about him that I can find out. His diagnosis, years of confinment, treatment records, disapline records (just because that record may still exist), date of death, cause of death, death certificate, burial place, listed race (this generation passed as white, prior records of his father are listed a Mulato or Black*). Any visitors. did he had any contact with his parents, Joseph Jubrey, Sr and Clara (Miller) Jubrey or his siblings Emil (Ameil), Caroline, Clarence, Amelia Jubrey.
* After many years we have met the family that Joseph and Clara Jubrey disowned when Joseph Sr. decided to pass as white. We are elated to be rejoined with our relatives. I still wonder about my Great Uncle Joseph Jubrey who is listed as residing here in 1930. The end of comments SMiller 20May2021.

Reply
Karen Cautela looking for nurse Herbert June deceased
12/9/2022 09:32:54 pm

He was my grandfather and a nurse there. Can anyone tell me more about what he did

Reply



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