5,961 Comments for Kings Park Psychiatric Center

But they did save TWO, though, one in each hand; there are plant-holders, left empty. Good for the saved ones.

Uncanny and eerie.

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I spent many pleasant times at Club Ninety Three. It was a recreation activity for the patients. A place where they could go for a refreshing beverage, snacks and quality staff attention.

Years ago Eric wrote how upset he was at the millions of dollars of valuable equipment that was left behind to rot and he knew about it because he saw it first hand. Obviously, there has been nothing shown in these pictures that could be used as examples of some of that "valuable equipment" that was left behind. I wish Eric had bothered to describe his personal experiences at KPPC and how he witnessed all this waste and what buildings he specifically was in and what he saw and who he spoke to and what he did to try and prevent all that waste. I was working at KPPC when it closed. I guess he didn't know about the several millions spent on new roofs even though the hospital was closing because they supposedly couldn't get out of contracts signed at an earlier time. Of course, the contracts had been awarded to politically connected individuals but so what, right? the roofs were replaced and the buildings were emptied. I remember the vast numbers of oak dressers, tables, chairs, bookcases etc. that were removed from the rooms in the employee and student nurse's residences and lounges and the furnished homes where all the bigshots lived. No one knows where all that oak furniture from the 20's, 30's and 40's went. I just remember it all being put into trucks and away it went. The patient dayrooms used to be furnished with massive oak chairs and benches and tables. They weighrf a ton so they were difficult to throw by a patient. They were gorgeous white, red and golden oak pieces. Then it was decided these items looked too institutional and they were all taken out and replaced with plastic and fiberglass, some of which you have seen in Mr. Motts' photographs. Where did all that heavy oak furniture go? People would pay plenty for that stuff now. Taking umbrage at government waste? Don't make me laugh. The two words are practically synonyms.

I worked in Bldg. 93 and I do not recall a dumb waiter anywhere. In a 12 story building? The building had wards on each side. There should have been a matching one of these on the other end of the building. There should have been doors on each floor to access the dumbwaiter when it arrived. What was the mechanism to let a floor know the dumbwaiter was there with its package? Where exactly was this found? It is obviously not large enough nor practical for use as a food mover if, in fact, it was a dumbwaiter.There are 2 obvious pipes sticking out of the floor. How would a mini elevator work through those? Granted, there is an obvious pull-down door with two grasp handles in the picture. I would say the door was to restrict or enable access to something that used water pipes. Perhaps you could have completed a slightly closer inspection so as to answer some of the questions? I suppose the opportunity is no longer available to enter these buildings now. I sometimes find it irritating that a person who actually stood next to something has so little knowledge of what they were looking at. Just take the picture and leave, I guess.

It is an inside window, between 2 rooms, probably allowing observation into the day room from the staff office. Notice the wire laminated between the glass so as to prevent shattering and shards. It was a reason most windows were made up of these small panes. They were much less inviting targets, and were much cheaper and easier to replace if broken. Much of the glass was kept in place using glazing putty but they also used some metal strips at times to hold the panes in.

This kind of door was called a Dutch Door. It was used when you wanted to restrict access of the patients to a room but still wanted them to be able to communicated with who was in the room without having to knock and have the door opened. When staff wanted to make the room secure or have more privacy they simply closed the top half of the door to the lower half. In the med room the nurse would put water on the table-like top of the lower half and the patients would line up down the hallway. As each patient came up to the "window" the nurse would give them their medication. In earlier years there were fewer nurses ande meds were often given by "attendants". There was little supervision and one RN might be responsible for several hundred patients. They were cared for mostly by the attendants. Medications were poured from stock bottles and theft was common, especially barbiturates like Seconal, Sodium Amytal, etc.Before the discovery of the phenothiazines like Thorazine, Stelazine, etc. barbiturates were the mainstay.

These shallow tubs were used to wash people, usually the ones who were unable for whatever reason to wash themselves. In geriatric areas bedridden patients could have their urine soaked and /or feces covered bodies washed in this style tub. Also, barbiturates were used heavily to medicate patients and these often caused constipation so these tubs were used to administer enemas and allow the patients to expel their contents directly into the tub and be cleaned up rather easily when compared to doing it in the patient's bed. The low sides enabled staff to reach over and control the patient while getting them clean. The tubs were on pedestals to bring them to waist height so staff could work at a comfortable level. You can see broken parts of the stands on the floor. Dead bodies were washed on stainless steel ones down in the morgue area and not on the wards. Bodies were brought downstairs very quickly and were refrigerated, not frozen.

Patients often used metal hangers to hang up their clothes in their lockers or wardrobes. Hooks are very inefficient when trying to hang up one's clothing. Wooden hangers were expensive, took up more space and were more of a weapon if that was your concern. There is a lot of ignorance and many misconceptions regarding how the patients lived in these institutions, especially during the 10 to 20 years prior to their closing. I think many of the comments have been written by youthful people. I retired from NY State after having worked in all three of the state hospitals as well as having attended and graduated from Central Islip State Hospital School of Nursing, Class of 1971. I had an office in Bldg 93 and ran patient therapy groups there. I attended recreation events put on by the wonderful rec workers like Barbara Lavore. I drank coffee with patients and attended parties with them in Club 93. I haven't thrown toilets from the roof nor did I ever disrespect the patients,staff, the hospital, its history or the Kings Park community. I loved that place and always will. You should have seen it in its heyday. It was really something.

The power plant supplied steam heat to all the buildings through underground pipes. Far from being cold, the buildings were often too warm with a very dry heat. it was difficult and often impossible to adjust the radiators in rooms on your own. First of all they were locked behind security gates. You had to call someone to do it. Then if it got too cool you had to call that someone back and they didn't like that. The heat was turned on in the fall when it was believed the warm weather was over and turned off in the spring when winter was over. Of course, there are always some warm days after the heat is turned on and cold days in the spring. When that happened you either roasted or froze. It was the way it was.

Marble walls and pink granite floor. They did not stint on quality materials. They used materials that could be cleaned, maintained and last for many years.

That is the way CT. looks from LI across the sound. You can't hear ocean waves crashing because the ocean is on the South Shore. Quite a few miles away. When I worked in Bldg. 93 the toilets on the upper floors were removed years before these photos were taken. There were no toilets in 1991 above the 5th floor that I recall. I don't know where the toilets came from that were supposedly thrown from the top of the building. They were very heavy. Carried up the many flights of stairs? I think the numbers of people who have been inside these buildings since the hospital closed has increased exponentially over the years much like the millions of people who now say they were at Woodstock in 1969.

Marc, The smokestacks in the picture are in Northport, not Port Jefferson, as pointed out by Mr. Motts. I lived there for many years.

That view looks more like Northport Harbor and the northern Long Island Sound coast. CT doesn't look that close from LI.