SCOUTING
FIELD NOTES

Part II: Scouting An Abandoned Mental Asylum – A Visit To The Rockland Psychiatric Center

01/31/2011

This is Part 2 of the Scouting NY tour of Rockland State Psychiatric Hospital, a 600-acre abandoned mental asylum complex in Orangeburg, NY. Be sure to check out Part 1 here!

Construction of Rockland State Psychiatric Hospital began in 1927 on a 600-acre plot in rural Orangeburg, NY. Below, the Male Reception Building in its prime…

…and today:

Very little has changed on the complex since its construction. In most cases, it’s only the overrun foliage that gives it away as abandoned. Below, building 19 then…

…and its twin, Building 18, now:

I love little details from a bygone era, like this TV antenna…

Also hidden behind a tangle of vines…

A sign identifying the building:

During the 1930’s, Rockland State was considered one of the best planned psychiatric hospitals in the world. Its numerous facilities, including a power plant, rendered it largely self-sufficient…

I’m not 100% sure, but the power plant appeared to be in working operation the day I toured the facility (correct me if I’m wrong on this one). I love that the endless smoke tower steps originally went right down to the ground (er, seems like a bad choice for a mental asylum):

And in case you weren’t sure which building this was, a helpful sign:

In fact, during its heyday Rockland boasted a working farm and numerous industrial shops, all of which were staffed by patients. Everything from furniture to brooms were produced on location…

And though most most of the hospital complex is abandoned today, many of the old maintenance offices are still in use…

From an on-site locksmith…

…to plumbing…

…carpentry, roofing, and a tinshop…

…to electric & refrigeration:

Behind the facilities offices, a great old ramshackle building:

I’m taking a guess here, but does this squat structure remind anyone else of a bus station? It’s located in the center of the complex and would make sense as its transportation hub:

One of the most well preserved buildings is the old Administration Building…

…which best exemplifies the Mediterranean-style architecture found all over the complex (sadly, the mission tile roofs are mostly hidden by snow in my pictures):

I love the terra cotta entrance…

Also very cool: two working lanterns on either side of the door. You can just make out the faded initials RPC, or Rockland Psychiatric Center:

Very glad to see the cupola is still in great shape after all these years…

…complete with its original weathervane!

Directly across from the old administration building is one of the last working hospitals on the complex, the modern Rockland Psychiatric Center. Effort was made to match the new structure to its surroundings, but it just goes to show that the old Rockland campus is an artifact of the past.

A side door to a building…

…with a schedule I have a feeling is no longer kept (yes, of course I pressed the doorbell):

Seems like the type of sign you’d see prominently around a mental asylum…

…however, this one was just on the old basketball court, in the center of the complex:

Also, note the building behind the basketball court. Another of my favorite buildings on the campus, this one resembles a stable and especially reminds me of my travels through Spain…

Love the enormous wooden doors and lanterns overhead:

Inside another building…

…a reception area, plus a lone pentagram:

Update! As a huge H.P Lovecraft fan, I can’t believe I didn’t catch this. Luckily, reader CSCottM pointed out a way too coincidental resemblance between the pentagram…

…and Lovecraft’s infamous Elder Sign:

As CScottM points out, very appropriate for an abandoned mental asylum. The other side of the room – looks like it was in use until fairly recently:

A peek into another building…

…reveals a former cafeteria…

…also in pretty good shape.

This facilities-related structure is surrounded by a stone fence…

A crumbling urn on one of the posts:

Inside, a mess. Those look like walk-in refrigerator doors on the right – perhaps a former kitchen?

Another look inside. Would love to know the story behind that playpen…

As I was driving past a far corner of the campus, I noticed a bunch of structures.

At first, I thought they might be graves – mental asylums often had on-site cemeteries for indigent patients:

On closer inspection, they’re just picnic tables!

I’d love to know if this is a newer addition, or if hospital workers used to gather here in the 40’s and 50’s for barbecues:

Sadly, much of the Rockland staff was drafted during World War II, leaving non-qualified workers to take their place. This resulted in just 1 psychologist for every 300 patients. Infection spread, and the hospital soon became drastically overcrowded.

As many of you pointed out, the harrowing conditions were documented in The Snake Pit, written in 1946 by Mary Jane Ward and based on her experiences incarcerated at Rockland State (a movie based on the book was not filmed at Rockland).

The title, according to the dust jacket, comes from an ancient form of psychiatric treatment in which patients were thrown into actual snake pits in the hope that their sudden terror would cure their mental illness.

Though presented as a fictional tale set at the Juniper Hill Asylum, The Snake Pit documents many of the very real forms of psychiatric treatment Ward experienced during her stay at Rockland. These included hydrotherapy, in which patients were forced into baths of either scalding or freezing water, electroshock therapy, insulin shock therapy, and of course, lobotomies.

At the time, very little anesthetic was used during lobotomies; in fact, there weren’t even teeth clamps to prevent patients from biting their tongues. Surgical equipment included drills with 1-inch bits.

By 1970, Rockland was largely an outpatient facility, and with the onset of psychotropic drugs, only now services the seriously ill.

I’m glad to report that Rockland State is not in immediate danger of being razed. A reader updated me that plans to turn it into a senior citizen community fell through last year, and the town is seeking new options.

I really hope Orangeburg decides to follow in the footsteps of Traverse City, Michigan, where an abandoned state hospital was saved through its conversion to commercial and residential space.

It’s unfortunate the sun only stayed out for the first few pictures I took – Rockland is one of those places that looks great when a blue sky backgrounds its red clay roofs…and very bleak under a recent snowfall and overcast skies.

I urge you to take a walk around the campus to enjoy it for yourself someday. It’s public property, so you won’t get in trouble (though entering buildings is illegal), and it’s literally a journey back in time. I promise, your imagination is going to have a field day with this place.

Finally, a look at the windows of Rockland State. I’m always fascinated by windows at mental asylums. For untold thousands of patients, these windows offered what must have been a torturous glimpse at a freedom they could not have.

-SCOUT

PS – Much of my history came from this short 1999 piece in the NY Times, and is definitely worth a read.

Many more posts in the archives!

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Douglas Zanelli

03/13/2014

May God have Mercy on all that survived this place we are stronger for it

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Douglas Zanelli

03/13/2014

I’m so happy I found this site this place was not Paradise but was hell I remember being locked up in the room when I was 12 13 14 and 15 years old with no food or water and only allowed out of the room to go to the bathroom twice a day in the room was Bouett there was nothing in it and they only allow you to have a mattress in the night

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Theresa

03/26/2014

Snake Pit by Mary Jane Ward is an excellent read and accurate during the time period for treatment.
Over time some things have changed, however there will always be horrors associated with Rockland State for those who had to suffer there.
There will always be the staff who is abusive, sexually harrasses people, doesn’t pay attention, neglects their duty to watch soap operas and get paid on the patients’ tvs in the day room. Sometimes they will sleep on the job.

Mainly, hopefully, there will always hopefully be that one staff member who everyone loves who treats people with respect and gets respect back from the patients. The one who goes the extra length to truly help patients who can’t help themselves.
A couple of awesome people retired prior to my leaving Rockland.
Pops and Barbara were two staff that truly cared about the patients and will be missed by those stuck behind the doors.

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Danr

03/28/2014

I worked at Rockland State Hospital between 1958-75 in various social work positions and my wife worked there from 1953-85 and would like to add to the many comments with facts.
The hospital was originally opened in 1931 with the intent of bringing the latest in psychiatric care.
This was a period of great change in all aspects of 20th century life. It was built as a “total institution”. Meaning all aspects of life were provided for. People were born there and died there and all needs could be met by the institution. There was housing for all needed employees with cafeterias to serve them. There was also a hospita with a fully functional operating rooml and dental clinic . There were shops that built furniture and manufactured mattresses. repaired all things necessary to maintain a not so small community including generating electricity.
New york City was previously served by state hospitals on Wards Island and in the middle of Brooklyn..Bellevue Hospital and Kings county Hospital were the main places that handled the mentally ill for crisis and when they became filled other hospitals such as Rockland came into being along with others in Queens an On Long Island.
The concept of”Asylum” was to both remove people from their environment and to also give them a place where they could get away from their stressful environment so they might recover. In those days a very large part of the diagnoses were because orrganic factors such as parasitic diseases, venereal diseases and trauma. with advances in medicine and workplace safety the type of illnesses changed. RSH adapted to these changes with teir treatments. Electroshock treatments were overused in the forties and early fifties and the new psychotropic medications that were proving to be most effective. As a matter of fact RSH was the first and most prominent non university research facility in the USA where ground breaking drugs were developed (The Nathan Kline Research Facility on grounds continues in this role. Other first for RSH were the opening of the first children’s psychiatric unit in the USA in 1938, The first deafness unit for the many hearing impaired who were wrongly hospitalized because of there inability to communicate. as someone else mentioned the first to Have AA meetings regularly as at the time Bill W was living in Monsey and the hospital was way ahead intry this as new treatment.
I ave to go now but I do want to mention that until the Community Mental health Acts of the 1960s all funding was at the state leve and until 1968 the sate allocated $10.00/day for the mentally ill for all operating expenses for the first six months of hospitalization and $5.00 /day forever after which would be $70.00/$35.00 accounting for inflation hardly enough to house and feed a person to say nothing about the cost of safety and treatment.

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Danr

03/29/2014

Part II RSH was set up,just as every other mental hospital worldwide, physically divided by gender. With a line running east to west right through thew administration building the north side was female and the south male. This included the employee homes with the exception of one home which was set up for married couples who were both employees and home 29 who were professional staff.
The aforementioned “big key” was also divided by gender with a big M ore F stamped on each key and would only work on one side. Professional staff had one marked with M&F. This division ended in the mid sixties. Many long term patients had grounds privileges, allowing them to walk about the grounds unescorted but were restricted to their gender.
The reception buildings, male and female were for new admissions and were the most adequately staffed as the greatest possibility for leaving back to the community was there. If longer term care was needed or there was pressure for space patients were transferred to the chronic buildings. Building 57 was for the geriatrics male and female but in different wings. For those who were management problems or violent they went to building 58 for men and bldg 60 for women. For adolescents ages 12 -16 they did not go through the admission buildings but went to either building 36 for girls or buildings 35 or 37 for boys. The adolescent buildings were better staffed and had school wings and state certified teachers.
For chronic patients thewent to buildings 19 and 17 for men and 32 and 34 for women the lower number of each of these pairs generally had the “Better” patients many of whom performed work such as messengers , cleaners and assisting other employees. Until the early seventies when the federal government decreed that all those performing useful work be paid at the minimum wage these patients worked without compensation. Ther wer also centralized cafeterias and gyms. Next to the bus station was the exchange store and above it was a large recreation hall in which movies were shown on the weekends and also some attempts at dances.
Visiting days were Wednesdays and Sundays and in appropriate weather there were several ares that had picnic tables for the use of patients and visitors. Inside the gates ther were several employee hpuses occupied by the assistant business officer and the person in charge of the grounds. Outside of the gates were the house of the directors and assistants and the senior doctors.Staff court had houses for senior doctors in staff court.
Medical staff most commonly came in through the psychiatric residency program which was a rigorous three years and was also the recipient of upheavals in other countries such as those able to escape from Hitler, the Hungarian revolution the British “brain drain” when medicine became socialized.
I have to go now but I will get to the community mental health movement.

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Durand Cornish

04/14/2014

You should contact me about RSH. My family and then I worked there since it was newly opened (in the early-mid 1930’s) until it was closing down. The place has an incredible history and a vast array of services, at one time, being a self-contained small city.

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1. Kathy Keefe-Cooperman
  
  09/19/2014
  
  I am working on a manuscript for a peer reviewed journal on Rockland State Hospital during its first decade of operation, and would love to speak with you if possible.
  
  Reply
christa

06/14/2014

i was in that class of 24 mentioned in that NY times article…it was an amazing experience to go inside some of the buildings and learn the history or this place i grew up 12 minutes from!

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Stephanie Sorensen

03/29/2015

Dear Nick Carr… writing from memories of building 36, in 1967, 200 girls under 18 with everything from epilepsy (no drugs at the time) to Mary Doty who’s mother tried to poison her and when mom when to prison, Mary had no where else to go. The courts sent her. I was one of only 3 on the whole ward that could write so it fell to me to be scribe for everyone else and write letters to boyfrends, letters to girlfriends, letters to parents to get them out of this @#$%&! place, etc. Cynthia died of an overdose on the ward after she trained all the retarded girls how to save their pills under their tongues to be spit out 5 minutes later into her waiting palm in the shower room. We all got liquid Thorazine after that which, by the way, permanently destroys your taste buds. We all got the same dose, regardless of diagnosis. It ‘calmed’ us into a managable horde. I was there 2 years.
I don’t know how I got out. I had a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, though I never saw a psychologist or psychiatrist. Thorazine does not cure it, though my parents believed it did. I know because I periodicall stole my chart from the nurses’ station, happy to read anything… we only had New Testaments sprinkled around the building but being Jewish I was not particularily interested in them, though I eventually succumbed.
I am now a published author, though I have not gone back to Rockland either physically nor in my writing. Yet.
sss

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Carol renza

06/05/2015

My husband’s uncle, Dr. Fio Radasssao was staff psychiatrist and Assistant to Dr. Blaisdell many years ago. He lived in one of the lovely residences the hospital provided to its staff doctors. It was like a city – everything done on site – the patients even made wonderful ice cream. Sad to see it in ruins.

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1. Ralph B.
  
  06/05/2015
  
  Lived right near them for 18 years. Sada was his wife. They always had two collies and a roomful of parakeets. The gates in the first pictures of this site are the view from what was their yeard.
  
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Jackie karp

07/07/2015

Anybody got Impastato psych. Prescribed Melloril an antipsychotic.

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John

08/01/2015

When the Rockland State Hospital was new there were 3 sets of medical buildings made, two sets of the medical buildings were torn down in the late 1950’s by the State to make room for the Palisades Interstate Parkway.

I worked there in Grounds and maintenance during high school for 3 years then again for 2 years as a ward attendant when in Rockland Community College taking nursing.

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Carol renza

10/10/2015

Ralph B.
They enjoyed traveling to dog shows, both collies, Holly and Champ were American and Canadian champions. I have always been afraid of birds and never went near Aunt Sada’s bird room! Sada loved flowers, especially zinnias and their home a showplace of flowers. Lovely memories of visiting them at the hospital.

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Katie

10/21/2015

The play pen might be from the day care on the grounds, I was In That day care! It was for staff and or bus drivers kids. I remember being told that if we didn’t nap we would be put outside for the loonies to get us! When I think about I wasn’t scared of them, I lived around the corner from there and spent many nights playing at friends houses across the street.

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JoAnne Weiss

06/29/2016

Just an update- the past 2 years, especially for Season 2, the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black” has been filmed there whenever the outside of the prison is needed. Amazing show, Season 2 just streamed. Great weekend binge watch, season 1 is superb, season 2 even better and darker. Very relevant to many current issues in the news.

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Steff

07/05/2016

Just happened upon this site. Most intriguing to say the least. Upon viewing the photographs, in particular, the photograph of the three windows side-by-side…does anyone else see an image of a person standing in the center window…?

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