Мрачная история государственной больницы Сентрал-Айслип — исчезнувший сумасшедший дом Лонг-Айленда

Central Islip State Hospital opened in 1889 as an experiment. New York City's asylum islands were overflowing, so the state bought a thousand acres of Long Island pine forest for $25 an acre and sent forty patients to build a farm colony from scratch. The doctors called their philosophy "Occupation and Oxygen, Rest and Relaxation." Fresh air. Farmwork. Dignity. It didn't stay that way. By 1955, Central Islip held 10,000 patients across more than 100 buildings, making it the second-largest psychiatric hospital in the United States. Patients arrived on a train with barred windows. The campus had its own power plant, fire department, bakery, and three miles of internal railroad. A mile-long chain of connected wards called the "String of Pearls" linked building after building in an unbroken corridor. The institution's economy ran on patient labor. Then came Thorazine, deinstitutionalization, and decades of decline. The wards emptied. The buildings were abandoned. And in 1996, after 107 years, Central Islip closed for good. The String of Pearls was demolished and replaced with a shopping mall. The power plant was imploded for condominiums. Courthouses, a baseball stadium, and luxury apartments rose on the grounds. What remains is a cemetery. 5,500 patients buried under numbered stones. No names. Among them, Holocaust survivors who were given numbers instead of names twice in their lives. This is the full documentary. From the idealists who built it, to the overcrowded decades that betrayed them, to the shopping mall that erased it. - - THE QUIET WARDS tells the stories of America's asylums, state schools, reform schools, and sanatoriums. These are documentaries, not ghost stories. Where legends have grown over these places, we tell you which parts are folklore and which parts are worse, because the documented record is darker than anything a ghost tour invented. New episodes regularly. Subscribe so you don't miss one. - - REFERENCES & FURTHER READING Historical Sources: Hurd, Henry M. et al., "The Institutional Care of the Insane in the United States and Canada," Vol. 3 (1916), pp. 227-231 https://inmatesofwillard.com/wp-conte... Mills, G. W., "The Story of Central Islip State Hospital," Psychiatric Quarterly 6 (1932): 726-735 Noguchi, H. & Moore, J.W., "A Demonstration of Treponema Pallidum in the Brain in Cases of General Paralysis," Journal of Experimental Medicine, 17(2), 1913 https://rupress.org/jem/article/17/2/... Brill, H. & Patton, R., "Analysis of Population Reduction in New York State Mental Hospitals During the First Four Years of Large-Scale Therapy with Psychotropic Drugs," American Journal of Psychiatry, 1959 Books: Polaski, Leo, "The Farm Colonies: Caring for New York City's Mentally Ill in Long Island's State Hospitals" (Kings Park Heritage Museum) Deutsch, Albert, "The Shame of the States" (1948) Cemetery & Preservation: Touro Law Center Cemetery Project https://www.tourolaw.edu/CemeteryProject "Restoring Dignity: The Central Islip State Hospital Cemetery Rededication" (2023) Photography & Documentation: Tom Kirsch, Opacity — Central Islip documentation https://opacity.us Arthur Huneke's LIRR Archives — hospital railroad rolling stock https://arrts-arrchives.com General Reference: Central Islip Psychiatric Center — Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central... "Willowbrook: The Last Great Disgrace" — Geraldo Rivera, WABC-TV (1972) - - #asylum #mentalhealth #centralislip #longisland #abandonedplaces #psychiatrichistory #deinstitutionalization #americanhistory #documentary #thequietwards #statehospital #newyork #forgottenhistory #institutionalhistory