Kings Park Psychiatric Center

The Kings Park Psychiatric Center was a psychiatric hospital in Kings Park, New York, that opened in 1885 and closed in 1996. It began as Brooklyn's Kings County Asylum, a "farm colony" where patients worked the land, became the state-run Kings Park State Hospital in 1895, and peaked at more than 9,300 patients in 1954. Since 2000 most of its campus has been Nissequogue River State Park, next to Sunken Meadow. The grounds are open to walk; stay out of the disused buildings.

The Farm Colony, 1885

The Nissequogue River State Park Foundation tells the story. Kings County, which is Brooklyn, opened the hospital in 1885 to relieve overcrowded city asylums, buying 873 acres of farm and woodland from residents of rural Long Island. By 1889 sixteen cottages, a laundry, a heating plant and a barn housed 450 patients. It was called a farm colony because patients were encouraged to work at farm tasks, which was then considered a form of therapy, and the foundation says it was seen as revolutionary for its time.

Kings Park State Hospital

Overcrowding followed. In 1895 the state took control and renamed it Kings Park State Hospital, and the surrounding community, then known as St. Johnland, took the name Kings Park. The hospital became a self-sufficient town of its own: it grew its own food, made its own heat and electricity, housed staff on site and had a railroad spur bringing supplies and passengers onto the grounds. Preservation Long Island counts more than 100 structures over its 111 years; the oldest still standing date from 1890.

Building 93

By the 1930s the state began building upward. Building 93, thirteen storeys tall, was finished in 1939 as an infirmary for elderly patients and those with chronic illness. It was designed by state architect William E. Haugaard and paid for with Works Progress Administration money, and the foundation notes it has been called "the most famous asylum building on Long Island."

Peak and Decline

After World War II the patient count soared, topping 9,300 by 1954, then began a steady fall. The foundation describes the shift from the old farm-and-rest approach to lobotomies and electroshock, then to Thorazine, the first widely used psychiatric drug, which let many patients live outside institutions. By the early 1990s the hospital, by then named the Kings Park Psychiatric Center, was a shadow of itself. The State Office of Mental Health planned its closure, and the last patients were moved to Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood or discharged. It closed in the fall of 1996; Preservation Long Island gives the month as November.

From Hospital to State Park

In spring 2000 the waterfront part of the campus reopened as Nissequogue River State Park, protecting it from development. In 2006 another 365 acres of hospital grounds were added. Preservation Long Island, which named the site one of its Endangered Places in 2023, says the park now covers more than 500 acres, two of the old hospital buildings are in use, and York Hall, the hospital's amusement hall, is being restored.

Visiting Today

• The grounds: open sunrise to sunset as part of Nissequogue River State Park, 799 Saint Johnland Road. Paths, the Greenbelt Trail, the river and the kayak launch are all open. See Nissequogue River State Park.
• The buildings: Preservation Long Island says only two of the old hospital buildings are in use. The rest are disused. Stay on open paths and roads, and keep out of buildings, tunnels and fenced areas.
• Photography: shoot from open paths. Some NYS Parks properties, such as Caleb Smith, require a permit for posed photography; ask the park office.
• Tours: NYS Parks offers guided and group tours of the park by reservation, (631) 269-4927.

Why People Search for It

Searches for the psych center peak every October, around Halloween. The history behind the buildings is about how New York cared for people with mental illness for more than a century, and patients and staff lived their lives here. Treat the site with that in mind.

Next Door: Sunken Meadow

The Nissequogue River runs between the old hospital and Sunken Meadow State Park, and the Long Island Greenbelt Trail links them. Pair a history walk with the beach or the Greenbelt Trail.