Rockland state hospital

Barsa Pavillion building down the hill from Rockland Psychiatric Center still in use 

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Rockland State Hospital 
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Orangeburg New York
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Opened in 1931

Photos taken March 2017

 After 4 years of construction, the Rockland State Hospital was completed in 1931. With its 6,000 beds, working farm, power plant, and industrial shops to be staffed by patients, the facility was open and ready to begin admitting patients. The first patients were 60 males transferring from Manhattan State Hospital. 

Throughout the 10 years following the hospital's opening, Rockland county experienced a massive increase in population which inevitably led to overcrowding in the hospital. The hospital hit it's peak year of admittance in 1959 with more than 9,000 residents. Like many other institutions of the time, the hospital lost a great deal of their staff after being drafted in World War II. This desperate need to fill those positions resulted in the hiring of many unqualified workers to care for and treat the mentally ill. 

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Medical examination chair left behind in the children's ward hallway

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When New York State Legislature passed a $50 million bond for the construction of new psychiatric hospitals, $11 million was set aside for a location outside of the five boroughs. Orangeburg in Rockland County was the chosen location for this new hospital despite the community's concern. 

The neighborhood fear only worsened when patient escapes became a common occurrence and there were multiple reports of violent murders, stabbings and assaults committed by those whom had escaped. In 1995 a patient that had escaped and found his way to New York City stabbed a child with a hypodermic needle on the subway, In 1957 a patient escaped and murdered a woman that lived near the hospital. There are former residents who remember a patient escaping and murdering an entire family but I was unable to track down the reports for that specific incident. 

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One of the common rooms of an adult ward which seems to be the current home of a squatter

The small playground outside of the children's ward

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Insulin shock therapy was introduced as a method of treatment in the hospital in 1937, and the introduction of electroshock therapy and prefrontal lobotomies soon followed. Images of two orderlies performing electroshock therapy can be found in the Digital Collections of the New York State Archives from as recently as 1957. 

A form of punishment was seclusion therapy which involved leaving a patient deemed uncontrollable in a small room with nothing but a single bed, toilet, and access door for food. Some of the patients forced to spend days at a time in these seclusion rooms didn't suffer from any mental illness, but rather suffered physical or emotional abuse at the hands of family members, or sexual abuse since childhood.      

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A pink tricycle sits alone in the matching pink hallway of the children's ward

The first room to our left upon entering the children's ward where the chairs were already in place

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The murals in the children's ward feature hand painted scenes by the Works Progress Administration's muralist Pedrotti Trent. Some of the murals include the 1720 old coach signifying the development of New York City, Henry Hudson's Half Moon ship, the "One Flag One Country" American flag, and various scenes from Washington Irving stories. At one point there was an interest in removing these murals and relocating them for preservation but the estimated $100,000 process to do so and the irreversible water damage led to the loss of any interest there once was. 

Since the 1970s, Rockland State Hospital became a predominantly outpatient facility and is now known as Rockland Psychiatric Center. The center has less than 600 patients but remains one of the most important and successful psychiatric treatment facilities outside of New York City. 

Scouting NY did a piece on Rockland State Hospital and the post received hundreds of comments from former patients and their family members, employees, and community members, telling about their experiences relating to the institution back when it operated as a state hospital. Below are some of the comments selected by Scout and reported in a follow-up article as well as additional comments that I selected. 

"I grew up one block from the hospital grounds…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."

"My mom was a patient at that hospital as well as many other institutes in NY. I remember visiting my mom for weekend visits. One visit she was in a white gown, her hair wild than ever and she was drooling out of her mouth, She looked like a zombie…She had also gone under the lobotomy and other sick things."

"I was institutionalized at Rockland County Mental Institution when I was 8 years old (1965-69)…I lived in a big dormitory with 50+ children. We were lined up at shower time and lined up to go to cafeteria. I remember spending most of the day in a “day room” – most of the other kids were severely disturbed / mentally retarded. If I didn’t do as told, they would put me in an isolation room (all day). Once they tied me to a bed with wet sheets layered with ice and opened the window in winter. There was an outside play area where one of the “minders” would hit kids with a wiffle ball bat. At meals I was forced to eat and finish everything on my plate even till I puked. It was HELL!"

"I was in Rockland State Hospital in the mid-1960s. I started off in the children’s ward and I made it up into the teens ward. I also was tied down in straitjackets in strait sheets when I did not obey their orders…When you’re heavily medicated, you don’t tend to really care about anything. I also remember a young lady dying. I remember everybody said “I hope she dies, I hope she dies,” and I was saying, “no let her live,” but she died. That always stuck with me."

"They did have some strange ways of dealing with us. When we started to misbehave, they would tie us down with icy cold wet sheets. I guess that was their way of cooling us down. The wet sheet thing I found more humiliating than barbaric. The only physical pain I received from it was when the sheets started to dry, I started to itch. Of course, there were the straitjacket and the itchy room but that was it."

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References

Blaisdell, Russell E. "The Rockland State hospital." The Psychiatric Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 1, 1931, pp. 193-195.

Cornachio, Donna. "Changes in Mental Care." The New York Times, 3 Jan. 1999,

Directory of OMH Facilities. "Rockland Psychiatric Center." New York State Office of Mental Health, 10 Mar. 2015, www.omh.ny.gov/omhweb/facilities/rppc/.

Ellis, Will. "Inside Rockland Psychiatric Center." AbandonedNYC, 24 Aug. 2015, abandonednyc.com/2015/08/24/striking-out-at-rockland-psychiatric-center/.

Malm, Sara. "Psychiatric hospital where time stood still." Daily Mail Online, 30 Nov. 2015,

"Rockland Psychiatric Center." NYU School of Medicine, med.nyu.edu/psych/affiliates/rockland-psychiatric-center.

Rockland State Hospital, Shock Therapy, 1957. New York State Archives, Digital Collections.
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Scout. "Memories From An Insane Asylum: Stories From Rockland County Psychiatric Center." Scouting NY, 15 Apr. 2013, www.scoutingny.com/memories-from-an-insane-asylum-stories-from-rockland-county-psychiatric/.
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