Kings Park Psychiatric Center was established in the year 1885 as an extension of the Brooklyn County Hospital so as to help combat the increasing number of mentally ill patients. Kings Park became prosperous and in 1986, it was closed down marking its end of 111 years of operation.
The hospital was established prior to the Kings County, Queens, the Bronx, Manhattan, and the State Island came together to form the modern New York. Ten years later the institution began to receive complaints from its staff and the general public about patronage and wastage of resources. Consequently, the New York state took over the hospital and changed its name to "Kings Park State Hospital" from "Kings Park Lunatic Asylum." The whole site is today known informally as Kings Park Psychiatric Center or (KPPC) in short.
The hospital became self-reliant community with complete farming operations; good accessible roads to enable delivery of coal and supplies. The hospital also grew its food and generated its electricity. As a result, the population of patients began to rise. According to Lynda A (2010), by 1900, Kings Park Psychiatric Center housed 2697 patients and 454 staffs and that the population of the institution was more than the population of the neighboring town. Because of the constant rise in the number of the patients in the early 20th century, the hospital population grew at an alarming rate forcing the government to come up with the prominent 13-story building 93. The building was funded by Works Progress Administration and completed in 1939. It was used both for patients suffering from chronic and those suffering from geriatric. Hunter (2011), explain that, the patient population hit the top in 1954 and gradually started to decline afterward. At that time, however, the philosophy that was guarding general treatment changed due to the adoption of pre-frontal lobotomies and electro –shock therapy. Nevertheless, these methods were later neglected due the emergence of a new drug called Thorazine. Thorazine became the first drug which was extensively used to treat mental illness as it enabled the patients to live normal lives outside the hospital. Consequently, marking the beginning of the fall of Kings Park Psychiatric Center as the drug allowed patients to be out of the hospital instead of being admitted. This was because the patients could be attended to and released to go back home hence the decline of patient's population.
Today, the looming area that accommodated Kings Park Psychiatric Center stands to the contradiction of the beautiful environment surrounding it. In 2000, the waterfront portion of the former campus (Parson, 2011) was reopened as the Nissequogue River State Park, protecting it from development. He further clarified that, the former rail spurs, abandoned in the late 1980s, was converted to be part of the hike bike trail in 2003.Therefore; Pilgrim Psychiatric Center runs three group homes in the ground hence making it very difficult for the hospital to come back to its initial state.
Since the closure of the institution, various proposals concerning its survival have been put across. Many interested developers in the institution have tried to buy the ground, but the proposal proved to be too much expensive as the former hospitals have numerous stumbling blocks to development. The major problem experienced by developers is several buildings that were ruined into their foundation and buried while the former institution was still functioning. Consequently, renovating or clearing the buildings is very expensive; hence the institution has very minimal chances that it will survive.
Hubbard, Jeffery and Walter (2013), affirm that in January 2006, New York State canceled the sale of the property. Mr. Bernadette Castro, a commissioner convinced the other state official to assign most of the hospital property to her company. This plan led to leasing out of 368 acres of land belonging to the former hospital to be added to the Nissequogue River State Park. With these allocations, approximately ninety percent of the old hospital is now in the hands of the Nissequogue River State Park. He added that the part of the plan was also to demolish fifteen buildings that were confirmed to be shaky and detrimental as well. Consequently, this transfer of the hospital property and later demolition has made it very difficult for the hospital to be resurrected and become functional again thus limiting the hopes of the hospital coming back to life a dream.
Worse still, on March27th 2013 the officials decided on a new proposal for the KPPC property that showed clearly that the hospital could not function once again (Aiello, 2014). The demolition of towering smokestack on the site and this was a major setback to the renovation of the hospital hence showing clearly that Kings Park Psychiatric Center is long dead and will never come back to perform its initial duties.
Kings Park carries a lot of histories of the Lengthy Island and the New York City as a whole. To begin with Kings Parks was the home of great baseballers such as Craig Biggio. Biggio is one of the five greatest best basemen of all time by renowned baseball statistics. He is the only player in history to be an all-star, both the catcher and the baseman position. Thus, KPPC portrays the New York as the home of sport (Henderson, 2014).
Again, KPPC has some reputation that it is haunted. This has made different people pay a visit to this place, especially writers, and actors. For instance, in 1995 movie "Eyed Beyond Seeing" by Daniel Robert Cohn was filmed in the KPPC building 136 and 137.More so, in 2009 another movie was made from KPPC. The film talks about the land of Mary Hatchet who appears to the screen in "Blood Night: The Lend of Mary Hatchet". These rumors of being haunted are as the result of abandonments of the institution (Masters, 2011).
Conclusion
The fact that many people are eager to see that king’s park center is back to its original state, show how people still care about their property. This is because the institution was created by the community in an attempt to create a solution to the health problem in the area. Hence, Kings Park Psychiatric Center, speaks a lot on the community on New York. Their togetherness in the 19th century and various challenges they faced that made them come up with the erection of the former institution.
The former hospital also reveals a lot of the hardworking nature of the Long Island people and New York City as a whole. This is illustrated by the fact that they were able to come up with these many structures so as to accommodate those who were sick. Again many people who were farmers in the Asylum provided food to the people hence the structure remains as the symbols of their hard work.
It is everybody wish to see that the institution come back to its original state. Therefore, it’s everyone responsibility to make a good proposal and share them with each other as a means of getting better way through for the hospital.
Works Cited
Aiello, Thomas. Kings Park Center: Black Baseball in the Lost Season of 1932. The University of Alabama Press, 2011.
Henderson, R. C., et al. " Mistrust of mental health services: ethnicity, hospital admission, and unfair treatment." Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences (2014): 1-8.
Hubbard, Jeffery R., and Walter S. Judd. 'Floristics Of Silver River State Park, Marion County, Florida.' Rhodora 115.963 (2013)
Hunter, John. 'Adverse Reactions To Drugs Used In Mental Health.' Adverse Drug Reaction Bulletin &NA; .219 (2003): 839-842.
Masters, Marcia Lee. 'Flight To A Haunted Palace.' The Great Lakes Review 8.1 (2011)
Parsons, Frederick W. 'The State And The Medical Center'. The Psychiatric Quarterly 1.2 (2011)
